I have asked several people over the past couple of months with the city, including city employees, officials and councilors to answer a simple question, “Was Mark Cotter’s trip to Haiti with Mayor TenHaken’s Christian Missionary paid for by taxpayers?” I have gotten a lot of “We’ll get back to you.” but mostly no answer. So unless the administration wants to say I’m lying and here are the receipts, it’s pretty safe to bet a NON answer means that the citizens paid for this religious trip.
This brings up some interesting points;
• Why are the taxpayers supplementing the highest paid city employee on a missionary trip?
• It goes against separation of church and state, and while I have NO problem with PTH or Cotter going on a religious missionary trip, it should be on their OWN time and OWN dime. I also commend them for doing charity work (even though there are many refugees in our own city that are suffering). But isn’t the whole point of charity, is that charity should come from the individual?
• There was a random comment thrown out there by PTH that Cotter was studying the infrastructure of the country. Is this some kind of sick joke? If this is your excuse for a junket, you really need to go back to the drawing table.
I have exhausted my search of whether we paid for the trip or not, I would hope someone from the public or in the media would at least demand an answer from the administration.
So I’m wondering Mark, do the trains run on time in Haiti? Are there any trains?