Categories
Government

Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources: In Transition

Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources (MoDNR), has been the focus of contention for the last several years. One of the first acts the state’s last governor, Matt Blunt, did when he first came to office back in 2005 was fire most of the DNR’s upper management—including the director, Steve Mahood, who was greatly respected in the environmental community. Mahood eventually went on to a position with the Nature Conservancy.

In Mahood’s place, Blunt appointed Doyle Childers, a long time Republican Missouri State Senator. Childer’s appointment was not without controversy, primarily because of his business focus, and by his lack of natural resource management experience. The controversy around Childers was exacerbated by his own politically motivated actions as regards to two specific events related to the DNR: the Taum Sauk dam break, and the Boonville Bridge.

The Boonville Bridge is an old train bridge outside the town of Boonville that advocates wanted to restore and include as part of the Katy Trail. However, Union Pacific wanted the bridge condemned so it could recover the steel used in its construction. Childers, in his position at DNR, supported the Union Pacific. Governor Jay Nixon, in his role, then, as state Attorney General, filed a lawsuit to stop the Union Pacific, contending that the bridge was deeded to the Katy Trail effort. When I last checked this item, the appeals court had sided with the DNR, the case was headed to the State Supreme court, and bridge supporters were looking for compromises, such as letting the Union Pacific have the steel, but keeping the bridge.

The Boonville Bridge wasn’t the only time that Childers and Nixon clashed. Following the Ameren Taum Sauk dam break, which caused devastating damage to the state’s Johnson’s Shut-Ins state park, both Childers in the DNR and Nixon as state Attorney General fought over who had control over the litigation related to the event. Nixon, as Attorney General should have been the obvious choice, but Childers accused Nixon of taking campaign contributions from Ameren. Of course, we later found out that the money came to Nixon indirectly, from general Democratic campaign organizations; that the campaign contributions were part of Ameren’s stock donations it makes to all political parties. In addition, Matt Blunt and his father, both, also received campaign contributions from Ameren. Regardless, the Childers accusation ended up being one of this state’s uglier events in the last few years, and also formed part of the unsuccessful election campaign against Nixon.

No surprise, then, that when Jay Nixon won the election for Governor that Childers signaled that he would be resigning, taking one last parting shot in the process

Childers said he and Nixon have had an openly contentious relationship and that he would have been able to do more as the director of the DNR had he not been in continuous conflict with Nixon.

He said his time at the department was consumed by fights with Nixon. One confrontation was over a proposal to tear down the Katy Trail railroad bridge that crosses the Missouri River near Boonville, and another involved the cleanup of Johnson Shut-Ins State Park after a dam holding back the Taum Sauk Reservoir burst in Southeast Missouri.

“It made for more complications,” Childers said. “The Boonville bridge, well, we beat him three times in court on that. It took up a lot of our time and effort. After that, Johnson Shut-Ins took a huge amount of time.”

He said it’s “no secret” that he and Nixon had been at odds.

“He’s a good politician — an excellent politician — but I do not have a lot of respect for him as an individual,” Childers said.

Of course, it was a given that Nixon would fire Childers, but Nixon also replaced many of the upper management in the DNR, as well as all DNR ombudsmen. The question on everyone’s mind at that point was: who Nixon would pick to be the new director of the DNR? The farmers had their own idea as to a good candidate, as did the environmental groups.

On January 12th, we had our answer: Mark Templeton. The response was a resounding, “Who?”, as people and organizations scrambled to find what they could about this surprising choice.

What is known, based on the resume provided by Governor Nixon’s office, and what can be deduced from online searches is that Mark N. Templeton is a 39 year old former Missouri citizen, who attended both Harvard and Yale before getting a degree in law. According to the bio at the DNR

A native of Olivette, Mo., Mr. Templeton developed environmental and sustainability strategies during his tenure with McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy headquartered in New York. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Templeton worked with clients to explore new, “green” markets for products and services and develop next-generation jobs in the environmental and energy sectors. While at McKinsey, Mr. Templeton advised major organizations in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including the United Nations Development Programme’s Commission on the Private Sector and Development. In 2005, Mr. Templeton left McKinsey to become associate dean and chief operating office of Yale Law School, his alma mater.

As associate dean and chief operating officer at Yale Law, Mr. Templeton managed more than 200 administrative personnel and an annual budget of $105 million. Among other duties, Mr. Templeton was responsible for approving departmental budgets, monitoring accounts and negotiating with other academic and administrative units.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Mr. Templeton was special assistant and senior adviser to the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and an adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. He worked as office director of the Human Rights Documentation Center in Bangkok, Thailand, from 1999 to 2000 and as a research associate with the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi in 1997.

Mr. Templeton, 39, earned his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1994 and his juris doctorate from Yale Law in 1999. He graduated from Horton Watkins High School.

Mr. Templeton and his wife, Kathy Dull, also a Missouri native, have two young children, Paisley and Graham.

An impressive background, but one that left everyone scratching their heads in wonderment as to Templeton’s qualification to running a department related to natural resources. Contrary to conservative opinion, Templeton is just as much an unknown the environmentalists as he is to the farmers.

What we have been able to find, primarily through determined Google searches, is that Mark N. Templeton is not Mark Templeton, the CEO or Citrix Systems. “Our” Mark Templeton has a law degree and is a member of the California Bar. His work with “green” jobs took place with McKinsey & Company, and since McKinsey is infamous for not divulging information about its clients, we may never know who Templeton worked with.

Before the McKinsey consulting gig, Templeton worked for the State Department, as well advising the US delegation to the UN. After his tenure at McKinsey, Templeton took a job as Chief Operating Officer at Yale University.

One other piece of information about our new Director of Missouri’s DNR that was not part of the public resume provided by Governor Nixon or the DNR, is that Mark Templeton is an original founder, and former director, of a company named Cobra Legal Solutions—a firm that specializes in outsourcing legal work for American corporations to India. Templeton is still listed as original founder and early investor, but the reference to his position as Acting Executive Directory has since been removed from the web site.

Cobra Legal Solutions: Founders and Investors - Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!
Cobra Legal Solutions - Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

I have a request into the DNR about Templeton’s current financial association with Cobra Legal Solutions, and the communications department responded with a note that they would check with him this week, since his first day at work at the DNR was Monday. When I have more information, I’ll provide an update.

Why was Mark Templeton picked to be the new Director of the Department of Natural Resources? It’s obvious that he does not bring with him any background in management of natural resources, or the environment, or even science, in general. According to Governor Nixon, Templeton’s focus within the DNR will be more on alternative energy and jobs, than day to day DNR management (Joplin Globe):

Said Nixon: “Finding new energy solutions and protecting our natural resources are the keys to Missouri’s environmental and economic future. Here in Missouri, we’re perfectly positioned to harness multiple new forms of energy, including wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric and biofuels. These energy solutions will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, create next-generation jobs and help turn this economy around.

“Mark Templeton has helped governmental, business and nonprofit groups find the links between environmental stewardship, alternative energy and sound business practices, and he will bring that cutting-edge thinking to our Department of Natural Resources.”

Sometimes the best way to end acrimonious and persistent contention is to surprise all of the players. In this regard, Nixon’s appointment of Mark Templeton is already a success. Whether Templeton will continue to enjoy success in his new role, though, is anyone’s guess.


Hearings to confirm Mark Templeton’s appointment as Director of DNR began on Wednesday. Unfortunately, there’s no public record of this session that I can find.


Mark Templeton was confirmed to the position at the DNR. I must admit to being somewhat surprised at the level of disinterest about Templeton’s involvement with Cobra Legal Solutions, particularly since the only reason he seems to have been hired was to generate jobs.


Mark Templeton’s name has been removed from the Cobra Legal Systems web site, as founder and investor. Surprising, because whatever his association with the group, he’s still an original founder, and investor.

Categories
Political

I’m a lefty and what Obama’s Warren pick means to me

In an article for NPR, David Weinberger tells his fellow liberals to “chill out”. That Obama’s pick of Rick Warren to participate in the inauguration is actually a good thing; a case of bridge-building promised by President-elect Obama during his campaign.

My first impulse was to disagree, vehemently, both with David and with Obama’s pick. Kathryn Kolbert at CNN best explains why this is so

Warren has worked hard to cultivate a moderate public personality but his views are very similar to those of traditional Religious Right leaders.In an email sent before the 2004 election he wrote a Falwell-esque message proclaiming that, for Christian voters, the issues of abortion, marriage for same-sex couples, stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia were “non-negotiable.” In fact, he said, they are “not even debatable because God’s word is clear on these issues.”

Warren is adamantly against reproductive rights for women; against gays, for all of his talk of serving gay people water and donuts. He is worse, in many ways, than someone like Falwell, because he pretends to be open-minded, when he is anything but. There is no bridge-building with a man who coldly and unequivocally rejects equality for gays, reproductive rights for women, and, frankly, religious freedom for everyone.

Warren is a man who will sit at one end of whatever bridge is being built, and demand that it meet him, rather than make any movement to build any part of the bridge, himself. His choice leaves me to wonder: why are we progressives always asked to give? To sacrifice our beliefs, our rights, our hopes and dreams for true equality in this country? In particular, why should women and gay rights be the pillars on which this new “bridge-building” occurs?

Obama’s choice is a painful one, given how this country has suffered under a religious fundamentalist-backed president for eight years. And especially painful, following the passing of the constitutionally authorized bigotry that was Proposition 8 in California.

As I wrote earlier, my first impulse was to disagree with Obama’s choice, but now, I’m beginning to think it may be an excellent choice in the long run—and not because of any absurd statements about “bridge-building”. The left is coming perilously close to deifying President-elect Obama, and that’s not a healthy state for us to be in. We needed something to shake us up, and it would seem that Warren’s pick is it.

In the last few months, we’ve built up such a faith in Obama that to criticize anything he does, even mildly, brings down “wrath of the progressives” upon our heads. Obama can do no wrong, and though he has made, to me, and others, some questionable choices for his Cabinet, the most that happens is a sage, head-nodding among his loyal supports, as we admire his bridge-building skills. When we do have concerns, we whisper them rather than speak out loudly. We’ve become fearful that any criticism will lose the floods of Republican conservatism and all hope will be lost.

The real danger in our country isn’t so much that we’re parties at odds with each other. There is no such thing as a country by consensus, and every politician knows the unobtainability of this dream. No, the real problem isn’t that we question those ranged against us, but that we don’t question those on our own side.

During the Presidential campaign, John Scalzi published a post titled, Reminder: There’s No Actual Office for “President of the Left”. In it, he wrote, Obama’s probably also aware that he’s got the left in the tank.

he’s got the left in the tank…

Obama has made a choice for his inauguration that, to all intents and purposes, betrays the very progressives whose base he relies on. Rather than “chill out”, we should be shouting our anger out, loud and clear, not only to remind ourselves what being a progressive really means, but also to remind Obama that, contrary to expectations, he does not have a lock on us.

Obama cannot assume we will look upon him, forever a day, with the indulgence a parent gives a favored child; that he can make decisions like this with impunity, based on an assumption that we “lefties”, as David calls us, will grumble and growl but ultimately stand behind him as our dear leader. No matter what. Such an assumption emasculates the left, doing little more than reducing us to sycophants and bobbing heads. Blind belief in one’s chosen leader may be acceptable to the fundamentalists, but it ill suits progressives. We needed a reminder of this, and now we have it.

Choosing a man (Warren) who symbolizes exclusion (and then hides such, when caught), as a way of symbolizing inclusion, just does not compute to this progressive. Mr. President-elect Obama, sir, you blew it with this one.

Categories
Political

Easy to spot

Easy to Spot

That’s us, ole too-close-to-call Missouri.

And the NY Times had a great title for an op-ed piece: Missouri Compromised? I can tell you, Missourians are not happy losing official Bellwether status. It’s all Nader’s fault.

Categories
Political

Now, to work

I was expecting that Jay Nixon would be declared governor as soon as the polls closed yesterday, but I wasn’t expecting how quickly the Presidential race would be decided. I chose to watch movies, rather than fret over the state counts. I knew Obama won, though, as soon as I heard the fireworks outside.

Was I elated? Elation will come in time. I was relieved. Hugely relieved.

The US did good, and I’m grateful for those who voted for Obama. I was particularly pleased with his victory speech yesterday, because it set the tone for what’s to come: lots of hard work, sometimes disappointment, but above all, an openness and energy we haven’t seen in the White House in a long, long time. The American flag decal we used to have in the window and which we took down 8 years ago, has gone back up today.

I wish I could say that Missouri still maintains its bellwether status, but unfortunately, by the tiniest of margins, McCain beat Obama in this state. By how many votes? About the same number of votes that Ralph Nader won. Our state’s distinctiveness has been lost, but at least, the vote was close. For a state like Missouri, that says more than you might think.

I’m a little disappointed that Proposition M failed in St. Louis county. The metro system needed that money. Now, Metro service will be cut, probably drastically. Did we think this cheap gas would last forever?

I’m profoundly disappointed in California for passing Proposition 8—more so because the vote means that people who voted for Obama also voted for Proposition 8, and I’m disappointed in every one of you. Is this the Change you seek? I’m particularly disappointed to read that, from exit polls run by the LA Times, the majority of blacks in the LA area supported Proposition 8. Perhaps change should begin at home, for all of us.

The one positive thing we need to take away from the Proposition 8 vote is that at least it was close. Twenty years ago, it would have won by a landslide. We are changing. Not quickly, but take hope: we are changing.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m glad this election is over. Now, the real work starts.

Categories
Voting

Voted

I and my roommate went to the polls at 5:30 this morning, and there was already a line of about 20 people or so. By the time the voting opened at 6am, the line was about 100-200 people in length, and there was no room for cars. In fact, I can definitely say that voting at the Cure of Ars is going to be a problem today, and not just because the street to the place, Laclede Station Rd, will be closed from 10-1.

But, I’m done. I was prepared, though thankfully I brought all my various IDs today, because I was mistaken on what was acceptable. Actually, my bad, but I had a backup. I also thought I picked paper voting, but had the computer slip, which ended up being the longer line. Again, my bad, as I checked the wrong box. It was 6am.

This was my first time using the computer, and it was actually quite nice—created a paper trail that you could check as you voted. These machines are taking over, eventually we’re going to have to start trusting them. Besides, I had the computer slip, not the paper slip. Mustn’t screw with the slips. Democracy as we know it will fall if we screw around with the slips.

But I’m done. Done. Done. Done.

Now comes the waiting.


I miss the mechanical voting booths, where you pulled a lever and it closed a curtain. You flipped switches next to names, and when you were done, pulled another level that tallied your vote and opened the curtain.

Once that curtain was closed, the rest of the world was shut out. It was just you, the machine, the switches, and your vote. When you voted at one of these machines, you felt like you were participating in a ritual, not a pop quiz. There was something very satisfying at that moment when you pulled the lever the second time, and heard all the mechanical switching going on behind you, as the curtain swooshed open, readying the box for the next participant.

Now, you push a confirm button, and screen goes blue (an ominous color), and that’s it—move your butt, let someone else in.

And I didn’t even get an “I voted” sticker.