During the ‘Mayor High Crimes’ interview on the Belfrage show this morning, the mayor (bragged) that when the bonds sold last week all he heard was crickets, and the reason NO ONE was saying anything because people are in support of the building. He would say that, that’s like saying voting against an outdoor pool means the public wants an indoor pool, even if an indoor pool wasn’t on the ballot.
How quickly he forgets all the roadblocks he put up preventing the public and even the council from weighing in on this building, and he was successful to the end, there wasn’t much more we could do to prevent the sale.
Here is the chain of events that led up to the bond sale;
• Mayor breaks the tie with the council twice to approve the building construction and bond sale
• Mayor vetoes a majority of the council to repeal the bond sale
• Advisory vote fails to pass the city council
• Petition drive successfully collects 6,400 signatures and gets thrown out due to technicality that the city clerk didn’t notice when he stamped the petition
• Judge agrees with city clerk and city attorney that the technicality is enough to throw out the signatures
What about the what ifs?
• Even if the advisory election was approved, it may never of happened unless the mayor delayed the bond sale, the only person who had the power to delay the sale besides a judge.
• Even if the judge approved the petitions or the technicality DID not occur, a judge still would have had to intervene to stop the bond sale until an election, AND the council would have had to certify the petitions and set an election date, in turn getting a judge involved again to delay the sale.
While the mayor bragged about the crickets and couldn’t understand why more people were not fighting to stop the bond sale, there wasn’t anything left to do. He successfully roadblocked everyone who tried to stop this building, and expended tax dollars to do so (in legal fees, etc.).
It was the epitome of ethical corruption by the executive branch. One of the dirtiest sequence of tricks he has pulled since he has been mayor. That wasn’t silence you were hearing mayor high crimes, it was disgust.