After over a year when I did not have the time or inclination to write in my blog, finally I have an issue which has provided me the motivation.  So here it goes…

I moved to the City of Coppell from Fremont, California in July 2002 to take up a job in this area and then bought a house in this City later that year.

After living in this lovely City for a few years, I thought I should volunteer my time and give back to this City in some manner.

Around the year 2005 (if memory serves me right), I came to know about several Boards in the City where one could serve as a volunteer.  One of the Boards that sounded interesting was the Conduct Review Board as it was supposed to look into any malfeasance by City personnel from the Mayor downwards.  So I applied to be on this Board, got appointed and was then sworn-in at a public function at City Hall.

At the time I joined this Board, I thought the Board would meet every few months to deal with any issues that were brought to the attention of this Board.

This Board position expires every 2 years and one needs to reapply to be reappointed.  I did that every 2 years since I first joined and got routinely reappointed and sworn-in each time except for one 2 year period many years ago where I forgot to apply and so I was not on the Board during that period.

In effect, I have been a member of this Board for some 14 years.

During this period this Board NEVER met even once presumably because not a SINGLE City personnel had ever engaged in any misconduct or malfeasance.  The only thing I had to do was to reapply and attend a function to get sworn-in every couple of years to continue to be on this Board.

After about a decade, I found the fact that no issue ever coming before this Board so astonishing that I recall remarking once at a function to the then Mayor Karen Hunt: “Either Coppell City personnel are so clean that they never do anything wrong – or they are so clever that they never get caught when they do anything wrong!”. 

As usual, I re-applied this year to continue on this Board and got reappointed without any interview.  Unfortunately, I missed attending the swearing-in ceremony (which I had never missed in the past) due to some last-minute conflict and was sworn-in a few days later in a private ceremony (pictured above).

I was expecting that this will be another uneventful 2 years of do-nothing time vis-à-vis this Board till, to my great surprise, I learned a few days ago that my membership of this Board became the subject of a controversy.

To provide the context to this controversy, I have to refer to another aspect of my life.

Sometime in 2010-11, I was contacted by the then President of the Coppell Republican Club, David Bittermann.  He was apparently impressed with a presentation I had made to the Coppell City Council sometime earlier and invited to join the Board of this organization as the VP of Programs.  I accepted the invitation and then over the years conducted forums for candidates running for the Dallas Fifth Court of Appeals, Coppell City Council, Texas House of Representatives and US Congress (among other things).  I was even invited to attend the State Republican Party Convention which I did and, in the process, met some of the bigwigs in the Republican party, both State and National level leaders.  Later I became President of the same club but sometime in 2013-14, I resigned due to both a difference of opinion with other Board members as well as lack of time as I had to deal with some personal matters due to which I decided to attend law school.  During my tenure at the Coppell Republican Club, I used to manage their Facebook group.  On my departure from this club, I started my own Facebook group in September 2014 which I initially called Coppell Opinions and later renamed it to Coppell Global Public Square (CGPS).

Most of the people who came to know me during my tenure at the Coppell Republican Club joined this new group at my invitation.  This included Mayors (including the current Mayor, Wes Mays, who was a member right from the outset some 7 years ago, who I endorsed in this group after he visited me in my home when he was running for election this year, but recently left the group possibly due to the current controversy, a spineless, CYA, action in my opinion), City Council members, judges, lawyers and many other highly reputable individuals. 

I was clear from the outset that this would be a non-partisan group and all viewpoints stated intelligently, however controversial, would be entertained.  There would be no room for political correctness.  Further, this group would definitely not be everyone’s cup of tea and if someone who joined did not like reading the posts, he/she could easily leave.

Most importantly, this was a PRIVATE group, meaning no one outside of the group could read any of the posts and anyone doing so by joining this group was doing so by his or her own CHOICE.  The best analogy I could use to describe this group – it is like someone choosing to come into my house because they believed I had something worthwhile to say and then either staying (if they liked what they heard) or leaving (if they did not like what they heard).  IN NO EVENT WOULD I ALLOW ANYONE TO COME INTO MY HOUSE/GROUP AND TELL ME WHAT I COULD OR COULD NOT SAY AND IF YOU DID SO YOU WOULD BE SUMMARILY EJECTED FROM MY HOUSE/GROUP.

Having said that, the only entity that had any say on what I could or could not post was Facebook itself.  So none of the 10,000 odd posts that can be currently found in the group are in in violation of any Facebook guideline.

See this link for a more detailed description of this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1488932914712931

Now we come to the controversy.

A woman by the name of Amelia Anderson (see: https://www.facebook.com/amelia.anderson.75) has recently filed a Code of Conduct complaint against me stating there in essence “Mr. Venkatraman has a public record of making racist, homophobic and misogynistic statements in writing” and attaching to her complaint some 15 screenshots from the CGPS group (which would constitute around 0.15% of the 10,000 odd posts I have made in this group since its inception).

On doing some investigation, I learned that she was the wife of Robert Anderson (see: https://www.facebook.com/robert.anderson.12935) who recently ran to become Mayor of Coppell and was soundly defeated.

Finally, my response to this complaint.

In the over 7 years that this PRIVATE group has been in existence, I have made around 10,000 posts (as stated above) on pretty much every topic under the sun.  Friends have communicated to me that they enjoyed reading my posts since they found my posts to be refreshing, fearless, unfiltered, politically incorrect, telling it like it is, not holding back on anything, etc. More importantly, they told me that they agreed with most of my posts and that I was saying things in writing that they were too afraid to say in the current environment where everyone has to watch what they say due to the fear of being CANCELLED. So much so they were too nervous even to “like” anything I posted in the group leave alone comment or post themselves in the group.  In recent months they warned me that one day the “woke mob” (which has nowadays taken upon itself to decide what one can or cannot say) will come after me and try to CANCEL me as well.  I had told them that I would not be intimidated by anyone and I did not come to this country, which prides itself on allowing everyone FREE SPEECH, over 37 years ago only to allow some crazy nutjobs to cow me down and tell me what I can or cannot say in my own PRIVATE group.

Now it appears that the woke mob is targeting me and the spearhead of this woke mob is this woman who is either clueless and does not know that I am on a Board that has never met in 16 years, I have not been paid a penny to be on this Board and so it makes little difference to me whether I am on this Board or not and hence she is engaging in a futile exercise in trying to get me removed from this Board – or she is shilling for her husband  who may continue to harbor some political ambitions and this complaint could be part of some grand strategy by him.

In any event, whatever, the motivation of this nitwit might be, she is clearly an embodiment of the CANCEL CULTURE of this time and so, as a matter of principle and with the support of friends who want me to take on this CANCEL CULTURE, I am NOT going to step aside even from this inconsequential role as a member of the Conduct Review Board without a fight.

So gird your loins and be prepared for combat, you woke folks…

Tags: Amelia Anderson, David Bittermann, Karen Hunt, Robert Anderson, Wes Mays