On The Record: Patricia Wheeler
Thu, 01/17/2008 - 3:49pm
For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Patricia Wheeler, County Chair for the Wise County Democratic Party.
How did you get started in politics? Did you come to it in your youth or later on?
I became involved when I was asked to be an election judge in our community, and that was around 1998 or 1999.
What would you say are the primary issues concerning Wise County?
Our biggest issue is to turn Wise County into a Democratic county and improve our Party participation.
How do state politics affect your neighborhood?
The main thing that affects us is water use and regulation and the oil industry. Wise County is located on top of the Barnett shale and the oil companies use a lot of water to drill the wells. When they’re through there is a lot of waste water left over that needs to be handled properly.
Do you have any ambition for higher office? Do you have plans to run for any other party office, or possibly even public office?
No, the County Chair position is it for me.
What advice would you give to young people just getting into politics?
Study and read everything you can because the more you read, the more you know and understand.
Every story has different sides. You can only know through studying the facts.
What one thing would you say a political organization never has enough of?
The most important things an organization needs are time and volunteers. People that have the time to participate are essential to the Party. This is a full time job as County Chair, and you cannot do it by yourself. Many people cannot help due to other commitments. We need more young people to get involved with the voting process and organizing of the process.
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Oil industry is positive in County
By moderatemama
Wed, 06/25/2008 - 6:34am
County Chair Pat Wheeler is focusing on the negative and not the positive contributions of the oil and gas industry in Wise County by following along with the grassroots opposition to oil and gas drilling. Wise County has Lake Bridgeport that provides city and rural needs and a newly formed conservation district to monitor any pollution of underground water. The high cost of driving outside the county for jobs is a problem, nota failure to regulate the oil and gas industry use of water.
The largest contributers to the Party, including myself, our royalty owners who have benefited from the rich natural resources in our county. To go against the industry that provides royalty checks to landowners and royalty owners, provides good jobs for voters and a strong tax base to public education is not good leadership. It is shows the Chair is short sighted and more progressive than the majority core base of the Party.
If the Chair expects to be successful at fundraising or recruiting any help, the Chair must first understand the moderate views of the base. Taking a negative stand against the oil and gas industry is counter productive for the growth of the local Party.
Progressives need to think about the impact of high costs of energy that impacts high food costs or they will not win in November. Most voters understand supply and demand. Drilling and alternate energy are both required to meet world wide demand for energy. Democrats in Congress have to share responsiblity for the high cost of gasoline at the pump.
At the local level, Party leadership must understand local politics in order to elect competent candidates to office. The goal should be good government, not turning a county all Democratic. It didn't work for Republicans and it will not work for Democrats.
The Dangers of Dichotomy
By Patrick M McLeod
Wed, 06/25/2008 - 5:11pm
The largest contributers to the Party, including myself, our royalty owners who have benefited from the rich natural resources in our county. To go against the industry that provides royalty checks to landowners and royalty owners, provides good jobs for voters and a strong tax base to public education is not good leadership. It is shows the Chair is short sighted and more progressive than the majority core base of the Party.
Maybe there's more than a "for it/against it" dichotomy at work here, moderatemama.
I've been accused of being against oil & gas exploration and production in the Barnett Shale here in Denton County. That's simply not true. I think it is important to explore and, if possible, produce from what we have here in North Texas on our private lands. At the same time, I want that exploration and production to be publicly responsible. While exploration and production goes on on private land, the public effects in terms of contamination of groundwater have the potential to extend beyond the boundaries of the private land where the exploration and/or production occurs.
Wanting publicly responsible drilling isn't the same as being against drilling unless you are an energy company that doesn't want to deal with the costs of being publicly responsible. The reason it is important to stand up for responsible drilling is because we, the taxpayers of the state of Texas, will be expected to clean up any messes created.
Personally, I don't like the idea of spending my tax dollars in Wise County to clean up contaminated soil or to do abatement projects because of irresponsible drilling. I'm sure you feel the same way about spending your tax dollars for the same in Denton County.
In addition, I don't think progressive is a pejorative term.
What you learn depends on what you read
By smokymountains
Sat, 07/12/2008 - 10:14am
What do you read? Smokymountains