new Council is the CURE, not the cause

Liers????? Please. Spelling is a basic building block to good communication. Some would say its even necessary. Is this, by any chance the same person who last August assured us that we were NOT in a recession, just a little inflation and a minor stock market correction? How did THAT prediction turn out? We are in an economic crisis that is worldwide, national, state, county, AND local- due to greed, corruption, and a lack of oversight by our government officials at every level. A new Council hasnt even been seated, yet it is somehow THEIR fault that we are in this situation? It isnt the cluelesss idiots who preceeded them? A new Council could be the CURE for our city, not the CAUSE of our ills - if their predecessors havent done too much damage by the time they get in. Change is needed, because look where these clueless, if not corrupt, clowns have gotten us! The only stealing that has been shown clearly at this point is yard signs, but it is still early. Time will tell. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

"Start giving this spread it around and for the benefit of everyone, irregardless, and we all lose." Explain this so it makes sense and doesnt sound completely self-serving. For those who havent noticed, we have a progressive tax code where those who can afford to pay more, do, at least in theory. Nobody is, of course, talking about turning ones entire paycheck over, just a small slice, maybe 1%. To say that anyone needs to accumulate all the wealth they can at the expense of others IN CASE they may need it at some point in the future they decide they want a new boat, etc. sounds like GREED IS GOOD and I GOT MINE all over again. Ayers has been repudiated by Obama, as he should be. What more do you want? self-immolation? Obama has drawn the line of well-to-do at 250k- are you saying those people are NOT well-to-do ? Are the rich saying their ONLY concern is their employees? Please. What about the child labor Nike uses to make their expensive shoes at $3 a day, while Nike makes millions? The rich are in business to make themselves rich and frequently couldnt care less about the employees, except as they relate to making them richer. The fact that they have employees is often seen as a necessary nuisance, especially to the self-centered and egotistical owners.

campaign pros and cons

Apparently Palin DID fight corruption among the oil companies in Alaska and that is to her credit. That she also apparently had a trooper fired for divorcing her sister is NOT to her credit, and smacks of petty politics. She does appear to know something about energy from her experience in Alaska, but cannot see Russia from her house, as she claimed, and has NO foreign affairs experience, so she is limited to that one issue. I salute her as a woman seeking high office but thats not enough to lead our country. Getting elected to the US Senate is an accomplishment, no? He has managed to raise over 100 million dollars for his campaign and that is no small accomplishment. Obama has authored or partnered on several bills in his time in the Senate. We cant afford another term of the same policies as Bush. Bush's approval rating is around 26 % as of this time. the Republicans claim that the Democrats have caused all this in the last six months, even while deriding the Democrats for "doing nothing". How can THAT be? Either they did nothing or they caused a lot of problems, no? Thay CANT have done both. Are the Republicans suggesting that the Democrats are responsible for the subprime mess? Who is the deregulation at all costs party? Who says,"Let the market decide", and after they have run us into the ground with their unsupervised greed and corruption, wants the TAXPAYERS (government) to bail their sorry butts out?

crooks are bored, or afraid of being exposed

Incredible. Losing 300k per year is somehow BORING to somebody. Perhaps they are rich or more probably one of the recipients of our freebies at the pool. It is only boring to those pals of the City Manager who are receiving the free services. They are feeding at the public trough that the City Manager has provided, at the taxpayers expense. More mismanagement, if not corruption. The ones who are footing the bill certainly DONT find giving away 300k of their hard-earned tax dollars boring. We find it VERY interesting that NOTHING is being done to cut those losses at the pool and it is allowed to continues, with the permission of the City Manager. The question is WHY, is nothing being done? Is somebody receiving kickbacks for allowing the losses to continue? Is this just one phase of a corrupt management team? Poor judgement and mismanagement in every arena of the City's business. Hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars lost on every project. How much longer can we put up with this terrible/inept/insane mismanagement/corruption ? Til they have bankrupted us? Its only boring to those who are lining their pockets and dont want to be exposed. All this is happening on the City Managers shift, under his supposed supervision. The buck stops there, right?

comments

At the Monday Special meeting there was NO oppurtunity for the people to speak. Luckily Dotson spoke for the average resident's concerns and was again the ONLY one making sense. The bottom falls out of the stock market and the effects are felt all around the world. Greedy and crooked Wall street bankers, etc have robbed and pillaged the banking system for their own benefit and that of special interests. Sound familiar? it should. its in these times of fiscal unrest and turmoil that our Council decides to increase our debts by 2.5 million dollars. Not only that, they agreed to pay a full 1% more than was originally agreed upon, costing us, the taxpayers, an EXTRA 20k per year for the next 20 years in interest. we were lowballed again, at the original 4.22 %, and wound up paying the 5.22% rate in the end. A classic bait-and-switch lowball approach that STILL works! That approach will ALSO work with the new gym, starting at 6.8 million, and if you look at their past records, will end up 20 million-plus and take FIVE years to finish. In addition, there will be NO deadlines or penalties written into the contract, constant change orders will lead to millions in cost overruns, and they will continue to raise our fees and taxes to pay for their insanity/lack of judgement/criminality (your choice). We will be stuck paying the bills for the next 20 years. Business as usual. Their pattern has become clear over the past 3+ years and a couple of botched construction projects. On a day when the stock market lost almost a TRILLION dollars of wealth, our Council adds 2.5 million to our debt load, knowing we are sliding into a deep recession at least and people are resorting to garage sales to keep the lights on, as the City Manager said. There was originally hope that the Mayor,Council and City Manager were just inexperienced, naive, inept and/or unqualified for the job, but since they have shown NO improvement over time and continue to throw our tax dollars away by the truckloads, its IMPOSSIBLE to believe anymore that they are just clueless incompetents botching each and every project they have presented to them. NOBODY can be that cluelessly incompetent ALL the time without a HINT of improvement over several years. Its IMPOSSIBLE to be THAT absurdly unconscious ALL the time! A more suspicious, sinister, yet sensible person might believe they are being paid to make these incredibly expensive decisions (to the people). Rigged bids, constant change orders leading to 300-400% cost overruns, no transparency, giveaways of community services, and lowball initial estimates that grow exponentially might be considered signs of corruption, no?

colossal corruption ?

The Dow dropped an alltime record of 700 POINTS ! The Nasdaq dropped 200 points ! Billions of dollars were lost today and there is NO guarantee this is the bottom. The Mayor and his Council decide this is the perfect time to go MILLIONS of dollars into debt on a new gym we cant afford and dont need! Pure, unadulterated craziness, if not collossal stupidity or corruption! NOBODY can be THIS stupid ALL the time. They MUST be paid off to CHOOSE to do this!! NO other reason makes any sense. No honest person with a lick of sense would do this under THESE conditions because spending money you dont have and likely wont get is a recipe for certain disaster! Remember this in April.
Where is the smug contractor with his Happy Talk when we need him? The special interests are the only ones who will benefit from this new gym construction. The residents will get robbed - AGAIN. Take in all this senseless stupidity so you wont forget when April rolls around.

happy talk as a cure

There's a sense afoot that the real problems we face aren't the crippled financial system or the slowing economy, but rather all the bad stuff people are saying about them. In other words, not enough Happy Talk. To ward off panics, financial media organizations are keeping Unhappy Talk to a minimum. "We're very careful not to throw words around like 'meltdown' and 'free fall,' " CNN correspondent Ali Velshi, who is getting mucho face time thanks to the meltdown and free fall, told the New York Times. The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is engaging in un-Murdochian restraint, banishing words like crash and pandemonium. Maybe I have a limited vocabulary, but I'm not sure how else to characterize a month in which the country's largest financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to be nationalized; Lehman Bros., the fourth-largest investment bank, filed for Chapter 11; AIG, a component of the Dow Jones Indsutrial Average, had to turn over most of its stock to the government in exchange for an $85 billion loan; the government had to guarantee money-market funds to stop people from hoarding cash under their mattresses; the nation's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, failed; and the nation's greatest financial minds declare that a bailout the size of the Netherlands' GDP is needed to stop the bleeding. Yes, we have to be careful about crying fire in a crowded theater. But calling Wall Street's a meltdown a meltdown is more like crying fire in a crowded inferno. the problem isnt too many greedy and crooked politicians and special interests, its a lack of Happy Talk! We could start by talking about HOW WELL the greedy and crooked politicians and special interests are doing! at a national level all the way down to City Hall.

greed and corruption

Congress is rushing to put together a HISTORIC, 700+ billion dollar bailout of our financial institutions brought about by greed and corruption at the highest levels, all the way down. Still, the local contractors arent worried a bit somehow. They smugly suggest that all is well-THEY will get THEIRS, and apparently thats all they are concerned with. They can bank on their usual 300%, 400%, and more profits from the Mayor and the Council to see them thru. That their neighbors (who are paying the contractors outrageous profits with their taxes) are losing their jobs, homes, and futures bothers them none. THEY are getting THEIRS. They are confident that, when the well is dry, like the federal government, they will be bailed out and more funds raised to continue to pay them their outrageous profits. Much like the oil companies, we are being hosed BIG TIME.