Thread: TX Latinos protest plan to stop Houston bilingual stipend

TX-Stop Bilingual Pay or Maintain Sanctuary City Status?????
More Difficult to Cut Taxpayer Funded Bilingual Stipend if the City of Houston wants to maintain their SANCTUARY CITY STATUS!

Latinos protest plan to stop Houston bilingual stipend
It's just 1 of 96 amendments as City Council works on budget shortfall
By BRADLEY OLSON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 21, 2010, 11:50PM

City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck has proposed eliminating the city's practice of paying bilingual employees a $70 monthly stipend for their language skills, prompting staunch protests from the Latino community in the wake of national unrest over immigration and multicultural issues.

The proposal, one of 96 budget amendments proposed by council members, would save more than $1 million a year. Other proposals from council members run the gamut, from disputes with Mayor Annise Parker over how to spend council budgets to a request for showers in the council bathrooms.

So far, none has drawn as much attention as the dispute over bilingual pay, which more than 1,400 municipal employees receive.

Frumencio Reyes, a legal adviser to the Harris County Tejano Democrats, which organized a rally Monday at City Hall attended by various state legislators and activists, said the proposal was not in keeping with Houston's status as an international city.

"We take this as a personal affront, especially those of us that are sons and daughters of former immigrants to this country," he said. Reyes and others called on Clutterbuck, who represents District C, to drop the amendment.

"We're looking at a tight budget and are counting pennies to find savings everywhere we can," Clutterbuck said in a statement. "All of my budget amendments are designed to save the taxpayers money and that is what my constituents elected me to do."

An aide to Clutterbuck indicated she was open to a compromise if it meant the bilingual pay program would be more strictly overseen. The city has no data on the proficiency level of the 1,445 people who receive the $34.62 biweekly stipend, said Jonathan Newport, Clutterbuck's chief of staff. And she has concerns about people getting the pay who either don't need it to carry out their duties or have not had to prove their language ability, he said.

The Houston police and fire departments also provide bilingual pay, but those who receive it must pass a test, Newport said.

Parker said in a statement that she negotiated a substitute proposal with Clutterbuck that tries to apply stricter standards, although many of those standards already exist in the original executive order that created the pay system in 1992.

Council members have spent much of the past several months preparing for Wednesday, when they will meet with the mayor at City Hall for a marathon council session in which they consider and debate all the proposed amendments to the mayor's $4.1 billion budget. Parker has proposed closing an estimated $140 million shortfall using surplus funds, land sales, fee increases and spending cuts. Fiscal year 2011 begins July 1.

In a city where the mayor is notoriously powerful, controlling what can be placed on the council agenda, the annual budget amendment hearing is an opportunity for council members to propose and debate many of their own ideas about city policies and programs.

This year, many of the amendments focus on potential ways to save money, including making it harder in a tight budget year to add employees. Another attempts to undo the mayor's decision to limit the ability of council members to provide excess funds in their budgets to pet causes in the city, such as to benefit certain parks or help the Houston Police Department's Mounted Patrol Unit buy saddles.

District E Councilman Mike Sullivan, who proposed the most amendments of any council member with 39, has taken aim once again at SafeClear, former Mayor Bill White's towing program. He also has proposed delaying the 3 percent raises the city has promised to civilian employees, an item that would save an estimated $8.6 million.

"When we have as large a number of Houstonians out of work as we do, I think it's unconscionable to be giving pay raises to city employees," Sullivan said. "Here we are at the day of reckoning and we are not able to afford what this contract calls for."

bradley.olson@chron.com

Comments

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 68511.html

Speaking of Taxpayer Funded Bilingual Stipend, it is worse in the Texas Education System:

[i]"I worked with man about three years ago who had just been transferred to Texas from the northeast and his wife was a elementary teacher who spoke Spanish, her family had moved to the northeast from Puerto Rico a couple of generations back. A local ISD immediately hired her for their "bilingual" program where she also received a "Taxpayer Funded Bilingual Stipend" and she was excited, bless their hearts so many of our teachers really want to educate our children. She soon became discouraged because she could not understand the "spanish" of the ILLEGALS and their Anchor Babies, their refusal to attempt any English, hostility to assimilate with United States Citizen students, and further disheartened by the disrespect and contempt the ILLEGALS and Anchors held for her, the school system, and the United States. She lasted the year and then found a job outside of education, her ISD refused to transfer her out of the “bilingualâ€

We have to pay to teach them Spanish so they can then be taught English at our expense. We pay for housing, food, medical care - you know the drill - all the extra expense we have for being a bi-lingual nation, court interpreters and so on and then we have to pay them for being bi-lingual too? We did not ask them here. We did not invite them. We did not get to vote on it. But we were gracious about it. Now in these hard times they cannot graciously take a cut despite they can see that they are serving so many that have had their very jobs and homes cut from under them? We have to pay extra to the children of illegal invaders for being able to provide service to more illegal invaders?

You know, other nations do not allow whole groups of people to ever serve in their government. Like Jordan. 1/3 of their population are Palestinians but they are not allowed to ever hold any government position because the Jordanians know their history and they wish to still exist as a people. Now that the truth is out that they intend to take us over perhaps we should have a similar law against Mexican descent people working in our government. We have alot of judges that seem to prefer international law over US law anyway so we can use Jordan as precedent and see how well they like it.

There is even probably something in the coran that will support this move to limit government employment to citizens who are not children of illegals or Mexican or anchor babies and we can place some cases in those districts where judges have permitted sharia law to be exercised on US soil. It's not racism because Mexican is not a race and it is a matter of U.S. national security and U.S. culture and U.S. national pride and because we fear that we will be "irreparably harmed" by their profiling of us as citizens and euro descent people. Also since they wish to deny and cast off their euro-roots perhaps we can classify them all as delusional and mentally ill and therefore not employable because they are unstable mentally and emotionally. I mean hey, we are being threatened with some pretty insane stuff. We can get pretty insane back. They can take their xenophobia against "euro" anything back to their nation of origin. I thought we didn't allow this crap in the U.S. Plus since their form of mental illness is by choice we don't have to pay for them to be mentally ill - take it somewhere it is appreciated - out of the U.S.

I do not wish to allow the practice of sharia law on US soil - I'm just joking in a way to let off steam.

"She soon became discouraged because she could not understand the "spanish" of the ILLEGALS and their Anchor Babies, their refusal to attempt any English, hostility to assimilate with United States Citizen students, and further disheartened by the disrespect and contempt the ILLEGALS and Anchors held for her, the school system, and the United States."

Why is our government going to reward that sick attitude with CIR?

We have a local lady who was a school teacher of Mexican descent who has become an activist against the illegals, exactly as a result of that experience trying to teach hostile illegals in the schools. I did not know of her until our local liberal "entertainment weekly" which is actually a criminal propaganda tool marginalized her by ridiculing her Mexican physical features - while they support Shamnesty and illegals and are underwriting the lawsuits against the state of AZ for the ACLU and several others. Typical liberals - they love the illegal Mexicans and then turn around and use their Mexican features that cannot be changed to insult and ridicule any that actually love the USA and have a mind of their own. But they are the ones who call SB1070 racist and supposably they are not.

Why is our government going to reward that sick attitude with CIR?
.

Because like my brother said over the weekend, those politicians are drunk on power and want more of it.

Frumencio Reyes, a legal adviser to the Harris County Tejano Democrats, which organized a rally Monday at City Hall attended by various state legislators and activists, said the proposal was not in keeping with Houston's status as an international city.

What the hell is a tejano democrat! Whatever it is, It cannot be good! These people are slowly but surely controlling the majority with their demands of special and of preferential treatment. Is their any other way to see it?

International city? LMAO.....I guess that's the PC way of saying SANCTUARY CITY. Since when does a majority hispanic (most illegal) constitute an international city?

They has long been an anti-American, anti Christian,anti-white force within our government and its now showing its ugly head, it's simply dividing our country more each day. .

"We take this as a personal affront, especially those of us that are sons and daughters of former immigrants to this country," he said. Reyes

Why? Immigrants speak and learn English.

1 million dollars! There are other cities in Texas with budge shortfalls, and they really should make this cut too.

Illegals can bring their own interpreters.

Dixie

Added to homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article5382.html

The Houston police and fire departments also provide bilingual pay, but those who receive it must pass a test, Newport said.

The logical conclusion one can draw from this is that eventually every teacher, policeman and fireman would HAVE TO BE BI-LINGUAL! Effectively barring American Citizens who only speak English from those jobs.