Comments on Advance Indiana™: Waterworks Board Controversy, We've Seen It Before

Great letter, Melyssa HFFT. Also, corr: World, n...

2010-06-05T18:17:28.508-05:00

Great letter, Melyssa HFFT.

Also, corr: World, not Word, re statement of Roberts.

I sent this email earlier today to Ryan Vaughn tod...

2010-06-04T22:04:03.693-05:00

I sent this email earlier today to Ryan Vaughn today who has offered to arrange coffee meetings for myself and any other activist who would like to participate.

I have not yet heard back:

Greetings Ryan,

If I sat on city council and there was a vote that had to do with Angie's List, but not necessarily involving my particular job or my advertising clients, I would not be able to vote on the council matter without prejudice toward my employer. Nor would I ever want to be in a position where I had to place a vote that ran against the interests of my employer in order to do what the people I represented wanted me to do.

I'm not sure how you you rationalize your involvement on the water company transfer, but it will be used against you. Everyone I know is angry you have not recused yourself from involvement in this matter.

Also, I'm not sure how you rationalize putting utility customers in a trick bag that forces them pay 30 year bond interest on projects designed for 10 year life span, but that doesn't even make sense to a mental midget.

I appreciate you wanting to meet for coffee. I really do. And I'll meet with you. But these are philosophical positions grounded in morality and common sense. And you are violating them.

You still have time to get off this unethical path.

Melyssa

This lack of accountability of government, includi...

2010-06-04T19:42:11.289-05:00

This lack of accountability of government, including local government, drove Dr. Paul Craig Roberts to write, "A Plague Upon the Word: The USA is a 'Failed State'". I never thought that the economist in Reagon's Administration, that coined the term, Reagonomics, would in 2010, have given up on America.

Re Blago's trial, I read that Resko has not been sent to prison yet, but is kept in solitary in county jail, and that if he is allowed to testify, is ready to sing about crimes of Obama and Raum. Yes, there are many other politicians and elected officials in Illinois that Fitzgerald should be going after, just like here in Indiana, if we had a way to get justice.

You raise a fair question about Melina, Barnard. R...

2010-06-04T14:28:13.813-05:00

You raise a fair question about Melina, Barnard. Remember that she served as deputy mayor under Mayor Peterson in charge of economic development. Baker & Daniels got millions of dollars in legal work for the City during the Peterson years. Kennedy and the corporation counsel, Scott Chinn, both took jobs with Baker & Daniels. I would argue that Kennedy is put in this untenable position of running for mayor and being unable to speak out on one of the most important issue facing the future of the city because she traded on her public service to land this job at this law firm. She knew when she took the job that she wanted to run for mayor and I simply don't accept that excuse. If she wants to be mayor, she should leave this job immediately and stop hiding behind this smoke screen, not that it will make her any more objectionable given how much money the firm has put in her pocket and will certainly be expected to reward the firm with more legal contracts if she becomes mayor.

AI: I agree with most of your points. Can you cl...

2010-06-04T13:35:44.088-05:00

AI: I agree with most of your points. Can you clarify one thing for me? You say that Vaughn should not participate in the conversation because of conflicts with his law firm and then you "kind of" rail on Kennedy for not speaking on the issue because she has conflicts with her law firm. Which one is acceptable? From what I see, it looks like Kennedy is actually doing the ethically correct thing. We can argue that we wish she would speak on it but we should be happy that someone interested in politics has the integrity to follow the rules of ethics.

I don't like Ryan Vaughn not recusing himself ...

2010-06-04T11:25:30.733-05:00

I don't like Ryan Vaughn not recusing himself because of his employer's (Barnes and Thornburg) involvement with Veolia. I despise Frank Short for voting for a pay raise for the Washington Township board while our country's banks, Wall Street, and employment were reeling.

But, if the votes aren't there to stop unrelated infrastructure improvements within a damn water company transfer- they're not there. If it's possible, we're even further denegrating trust in the possibility of government doing something right with omnipresent, procedural foot-dragging, issue after issue, on every level of government.

I think we're suppossed to keep trying to find a collective way to get things done, versus everybody walking through the streets carrying a rifle.