The Central Appraisal District (CAD) is a multi-million dollar entity with a staff and arsenal of resources at its disposal.

Thomas Dorman is a man of modest means who lives in a mobile home east of Horizon City.

In May of this year Dorman and his wife received their evaluation from the CAD. To Dorman’s surprise, his mobile home and pie-shaped property value increased by more than 135 percent over the previous year.

Boy did the CAD pick the wrong guy to mess with. Okay, so maybe the folks there didn’t actually pick Thomas Dorman’s name out of a hat, but I bet they are sorry it was that guy they crossed paths with.

You see, Thomas Dorman is a unique guy and a close personal friend of mine. I was actually at his home right after he received the CAD appraisal and I thought to myself, “This ain’t gonna be pretty.”

What’s unique about Thomas Dorman is the fact that he isn’t afraid of engaging government and making government live by its own rules and do the right thing.

It’s easy for me to pick on the CAD because it is almost universally disliked. Who likes the agency that makes you have to pay more money? Dorman doesn’t necessarily dislike the CAD, but he believes that it should justify its valuation of his property.

So Dorman did what most people want to do, but never go through with, he fought the CAD. As someone who’s fought government, side by side with Thomas Dorman, and has been subject to seemingly endless red tape, I can tell you that fighting government isn’t easy.

It's tedious, time-consuming, and emotionally draining. Which is why very few ever actually try to fight government and fewer still go through with it.

But like I said, Dorman is a unique guy. He is absolutely relentless when it comes to doing his homework on an issue dealing with government. He will spend hours and hours researching his questions and dealing with the bureaucracies. Put him on hold, tell him to call back, make him fill out your forms and retell his complaint repeatedly and he’ll take it. And come back stronger.

Personally I think Dorman likes beating government, not that he’s a guy who complains for the sake of complaining either. Trust me, he’d much rather be left alone to gaze at the stars (Dorman is an accomplished amateur astronomer is a frequent guest at schools and planetariums). But if government wants to play games, you might as well play to win, right?

For some background on the particulars of this very complex and nuanced story, read this article by Sito Negron and David Crowder. But here it is in a nutshell.

· In May the CAD sent the appraisal with 135% increase.

· On June 8th, Dorman files a challenge to the appraisal with the CAD and on the same day submits an Open Records Request for information relating to any errors or problems with the new automated evaluation application used by the CAD to appraise property value.

· The requested information was not made available to Dorman
until June 30th and came in the form of a DVD with nearly four gigabytes of data.

· Dorman goes through the data and finds a file that contains
confidential information about law enforcement, elected officials and judges.

· Dorman notifies authorities and the FBI gets involved.

Now Dorman is fighting the CAD and the FBI and local law enforcement want the DVD and threaten to confiscate his computer. This is about the time when most people cash in their chips and walk away. Fighting a government entity is bad enough without having to have to deal with law enforcement and the FBI all at the same time.

Did I mention that Dorman did all of this without the assistance of an attorney? Dorman says that he called to inquire about legal representation and found out it would cost at least $5,000 to get an attorney to represent him in front of the CAD.

Dorman just doesn’t have that kind of money. But if the FBI couldn’t stop him from going forward, there’s no way Dorman lets a little thing like not having an attorney stop him either.

Dorman decided to make four civil complaints against the CAD and filed them with the County Attorney’s Office, and one criminal complaint and filed it with the District Attorney’s Office.

You’re probably wondering how things turned out with the CAD complaints. Well, just like the Bible, David beat Goliath. The County Attorney sided with Dorman on three of his four complaints against the CAD and later sent this enforcement letter (click on image to the side of the page).

No one would think worse of Dorman if he’d dropped the issue at any point during the process. He’s a guy in poor health and limited means and doesn’t have the resources to put a long and sustained fight needed to affect change.

But Dorman himself sums it up best. “More citizens need to engage and access their government. We have a constitutional right and moral obligation to maintain control over the instruments we created.”

So consider this piece a nod to the Thomas Dormans, Lisa Turners, Carl Starrs, and Ray Gilberts of El Paso. If it wasn’t for people like them holding government’s feet to the fire, we might one day find ourselves under government’s feet.

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Abeytia writes the Lionstar blog and is a political animal who spends way too much time traveling the wilds of El Paso politics. Reach him at lionstar@thelionstarblog.com.