Showing posts with label mayor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mayor. Show all posts

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Potholes are an imperialist plot

If you're Omaha's mayor, it's probably not such a good thing when a rare drive-by video comes out of North Korea, and the first thing that pops into people's mind is "Our streets are a lot worse than Pyongyang's."
Kim Jean-Un
Jean Stothert
Maybe if Jean Stothert got one of those Kim Jong-Un hairdos -- Kim Jean-Un? -- that would be the one little thing that turned things around for her. Either that, or we could just threaten to incinerate Council Bluffs unless. . . .

No, I think we're just screwed.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Ve haff veys to mach joo zaloot ze banner uff freedom


In case there was any doubt left that the Republican Party has given itself over to the fascist bullying of the right, consider Hal Daub -- a University of Nebraska regent plotting his very own Night of the Long Knives against a trio of college football players.

Were they communists working undercover for Red China, plotting to destroy Husker baseball and make ping pong the national sport?

Were they deep-cover moles for Vladimir Putin, planning to hack the university's computer network and mete out 26,000 incompletes?

Did they not want to Make Football Great Again in Lincoln?

No, it was worse than that . . . at least for Daub, a Donald Trump delegate and onetime congressman who missed the House Un-American Activities Committee by this much.

What the players did was kneel in protest during the national anthem before a Nebraska road game at Northwestern last week. I think it is clear by now why they did. And for that, there must be consequences -- human rights, freedom of conscience and the First Amendment be damned.

Daub (R-Paraguay)
NU Regent Hal Daub of Omaha said he was disappointed in the Husker players because he doesn’t believe a football game is the place to express political or social views. Expressing their views is fine, he said, but not when it’s “disruptive.” 
“You don’t have to put your hand over your heart or sing, but out of respect for other people’s point of view and wishes, the respect they could show would be, at least, stand or not be on the field” when the anthem is played, he said.
Daub also said he was disappointed in the reaction from Husker football coach Mike Riley, who backed the players.
“I was not pleased with his response,” Daub said.
Daub said he believes the matter will be a topic of discussion among the regents at some point. 
“Nobody’s out to censure anybody or limit anybody’s free speech, but speech is limited,” Daub said. “Conduct is limited.” 
Daub, who served in the U.S. Army, said he’s received between 50 and 60 emails about the issue, and the majority disagree with the players’ decision.
The Lincoln Journal Star reported that Daub said the players “had better be kicked off the team.” 
But Daub denied saying that during an interview with The World-Herald.

Asked what kind of punishment, if any, the players should face, Daub said he’s unsure.

“I think that’s a debate that will unfold here,” he said.


NO, I THINK the debate that should unfold here surrounds how Daub (R-Nuremberg) even thinks he has any moral right to speak on the subject, much less condemn Husker linebackers Michael Rose-Ivey and Mohamed Barry or defensive end DaiShon Neal.

Hal Daub was mayor of Omaha from 1995-2001, presiding over this Midwestern city at a time when, thanks in part to Daub's "get tough" policy, residents of predominantly black north Omaha came to see the police department as almost an occupying force . . . in the German sense of the term. Police-community relations, in a word, were awful.

Community leaders talked of certain Omaha cops with a reputation for routinely roughing up African-Americans for no other reason than they could get away with it. The tactics did not lead to any great reduction in -- or great campaign against -- violent crime in the city.

For example, here's something that ran in the Omaha World-Herald in September 2000:
Omaha black leaders said Tuesday that they have no intention of losing the momentum for action demonstrated by people who gathered Monday at a civil-rights protest. 
The Rev. Everett Reynolds, president of the local NAACP branch, said
community leaders and members were planning to gather next Monday at Morning Star Baptist Church, 20th and Burdette Streets, to plan the next move.

"We have a lot of folks that are excited and want to do something," he said. "Our task now is to put that in focus."

More than 1,000 people gathered about noon on the steps and the grassy courtyard of the Douglas County Courthouse, protesting recent police killings.

It was a much bigger turnout than the estimated 300 people published in The World-Herald Monday evening. The lower figure was based on an estimate provided by one of the protest organizers late in the morning while the crowd was still gathering.

Calling it a "funeral for justice," about 400 cars wound their way from 24th and Lake Streets to downtown. Headlights on and horns sounding, they made downtown streets look and sound like midtown Manhattan at rush hour.

Organizers pleaded for an end to past wrongs, including the killing of black men by police officers and a lack of response by the criminal-justice system.

In particular, leaders decried Officer Jerad Kruse's shooting of George
Bibins after a high-speed police chase. Bibins, who was unarmed, had been fleeing from police in a stolen Jeep.

Kruse was charged with manslaughter, but those charges were dropped before the case went to a grand jury. The grand jury declined to file charges.

In a peaceful demonstration, speakers called for authorities to release
information about the Bibins shooting and bring charges against the officer.

"What I hope happens is they take notice that the community has had enough and that the Bibins family wants answers and the community wants answers," Eric Bibins, the brother of George Bibins, said after the protest ended.
 
Reynolds joined him - hoping that the protest put a dent in community denial and put some pressure on local authorities.

"I'm hoping they'll understand the dissatisfaction and do what is right," Reynolds said.

At the start of the protest, pallbearers carried a metallic gray coffin
through the crowd and set it at the top of the courthouse steps. Looking to the coffin, the Rev. Larry Menyweather-Woods said: "Justice, Omaha-way, is inside."

"We want to bury this justice," said Menyweather-Woods, whose Mount Moriah Baptist Church was the starting point of the procession and rally. "We want a new justice to rise up."

In words and signs, the residents unleashed a flurry of frustration about race relations in Omaha. On the one hand, they said, they're harassed by police. On the other hand, they're ignored by city policy-makers.

One sign said: "There is no justice in north Omaha. There's just us."

THE PROTESTING football players in Lincoln, I am sure, have never heard of what happened when Hal Daub was mayor of this city 50 miles northeast on Interstate 80. Michael Rose-Ivey is from Kansas City, Mo. Mohamed Barry is from Georgia. DaiShon Neal is from Omaha, but when this story appeared in the World-Herald, I don't think he read it -- he was not yet 3.

Regent Daub, on the other hand, probably would like to forget some of these inconvenient truths of the Omaha he led as mayor. More accurately, Daub probably would like us to forget what happened then.

Like another incident from deep in the Daub days, the October 1997 shooting of Marvin Ammons on a north Omaha street during an early, freak snowstorm. Ofc. Todd Sears told investigators he thought the Gulf War veteran, who was African-American, had a gun in his waistband. It was a cellphone.

A grand jury indicted Sears in 1998, but a district judge dismissed the indictment due to alleged misconduct by an alternate grand juror. The cop never faced charges -- a second grand jury declined to indict but harshly criticized Omaha police in the case.


Now, Hal Daub, NU regent, is concerned that the Husker players' actions are "disruptive." That's rich.

The man could teach a seminar on disruption. The out-of-control police department and the "get tough" political dogwhistles of Hal Daub's Omaha created a racial tinderbox that was truly "disruptive" -- not to a football game in Evanston, Ill., but to civil society and domestic tranquility right here in Omaha, Neb.


How dare Daub, with his blood-stained record, wrap himself in Old Glory to lead a self-righteous, constitutionally challenged pogrom against black football players who did nothing but take a damn knee.

A First Amendment-approved knee.

But what's free speech -- or trying to ruin the lives of three college kids -- when there's political hay to be made in Donald Trump's Amerika. Only a man so small could talk so big about a transgression so non-existent.


Only a man without shame in a country with no memory.



UPDATE: I don't know that I've ever seen the president of a university bitch-slap one of his bosses, but it just happened at the University of Nebraska. I think we have a keeper here.

God, I love this state.


Monday, August 26, 2013

Calling Jim McKay


Put a tea-party lovin', gun-totin' Republican hack in the mayor's office one minute, find yourself in the bizarro world the next.

Wait, that was last month. The embarrassment du jour would be Omaha budgetary politics right out of the Black September playbook -- the municipal policymaking version of Munich 1972. All we needed on the news tonight -- and there's still a bit of time as I type this -- is an undead Jim McKay at the anchor desk and a military operation gone horribly bad at Eppley Airfield.

First, the setup: Omaha's former mayor, Jim Suttle, negotiates a new contract with the firefighters union aimed at ending the practice of pension-spiking, where you can work a bunch of overtime, get your salary as high as you can, and then retire with astronomical benefits pegged to that astronomical salary. That's the quick-and-dirty version, granted, but that's basically it.

The practice was fast sinking the city's pension fund, and it had to stop before the city quite literally ended up bankrupt -- and relatively soon, at that.

So, Suttle -- defeated by then-councilwoman Jean Stothert in this spring's mayoral election -- pretty much put an end to that, as had been done when the police contract came up for renewal previously. But the city council, with Stothert leading the charge, rejected that deal as too costly.

Then the council, with Stothert again leading the charge, strips Suttle of his contract-negotiating authority and reserves that job for itself. And then the council, again with Stothert in a leadership role, negotiates a new deal that Suttle warns really will bust the budget before signing the ratified deal in a total "I give up" moment.

Fast forward to this summer and the start of the budget process. The city is facing a sizable deficit -- mainly due to big projected overruns in the fire department budget. The fire chief, Mike McDonnell, says it's due to costs locked in by the new labor contract but Stothert, in effect, says it's because McDonnell is a twit and, furthermore, I'm going to cut the crap out of your budget, lay off all the new recruits and take an ambulance and some rigs out of service . . . and, by the way, why haven't you quit yet?

OH . . . this may have had something to do with Her Honor's attitude toward the chief and the fired, er, fire department:
McDonnell has sought a roughly $94 million budget, which he said was necessary to avoid cuts. That included a $150,000 to pay University of Nebraska Medical Center consultants who supervise the department's emergency medical service. Those consultants replaced Stothert's husband, Dr. Joe Stothert after he was dismissed by McDonnell and Mayor Jim Suttle's administration.
HERE'S some more of how the Omaha World-Herald is reporting the story tonight:
An exit package brokered Monday between Mayor Jean Stothert's administration and the embattled fire chief carries considerable financial implications.

The agreement protects current department staff from layoffs through next July 1 and gives McDonnell a full pension, more than a year before he qualifies for it.

The agreement also keeps all existing fire equipment in service through next July 1, with the exception of a medic unit based in South Omaha. .

McDonnell said the deal means Stothert needs to add about $2 million to the Fire Department budget. The mayor, however, said no additional funds were needed. Stothert said she expected the department budget to pass Tuesday.

McDonnell will receive a $10,900 monthly pension. He said that is about $900 more than he qualifies for with his 23 years and 10 months of service.

“These changes are in the best interest of the City of Omaha and will move the Fire Department ahead in a positive manner,” Stothert said in a statement.

Said McDonnell: “It was an honor to serve the city.”
(snip)

McDonnell's departure comes as the City Council prepares to vote Tuesday on Stothert's proposed 2014 budget.

The exit agreement, signed by Stothert and McDonnell, must be codified into a legally binding contract by Friday or else it is void.

The chief gets credit for 25 years of service and a retirement ceremony. The city will pay his share of his pension contribution through October 2014.

The agreement includes a “joint non-disparagement” clause until next July 1.

The city will maintain three of its four assistant chief positions through 2014. A fourth chief will retire this October.

McDonnell held a small press conference just before 7 p.m. Monday at headquarters in front of a city fire engine. He had already packed his city-issued SUV with personal effects and memorabilia.

He will be placed on paid administrative leave for the immediate future.

Stothert has made it clear since her mayoral campaign that she wanted McDonnell out.

Efforts to negotiate his future have been discussed intermittently for several weeks.

The two have been at odds over the mayor's proposed $90.6 million Fire Department budget, which could have forced layoffs, demotions and pulling firetrucks and ambulances from service. 
AND HERE'S the kicker: Stothert is refusing to apply for federal grant money specifically made available to fire departments for maintaining present staffing or even increasing it to better meet National Fire Protection Association standards.

Refusing to apply. Refusing to even try to avoid layoffs, unless. . . .

Hardball negotiating is one thing. Holding firefighters hostage to get the chief to retire is the stuff of political terrorism. Obviously, Omaha's new mayor has been taking pointers from congressional Republicans.


The only difference between Abu Packin' and Palestinian terrorists from back in the day is in the degree of her actions, not the principle behind them. It's just a matter of firing a hostage an hour until you meet my demands instead of killing an Israeli an hour until you meet my demands.


What matters to Stothert isn't the firefighters -- or public safety. What matters to Stothert isn't even balancing the budget in a sensible way. What matters to this doctrinaire GOP hack is ideology, sucking up to her right flank . . . and revenge.

How very Black September of her. Right down to this expertly placed shiv in the back, as reported by KETV television:
McDonnell said in order to fund those positions, the City Council would have to add $2 million to the fire department's budget, but the mayor's office said the budget will go before the council Tuesday at the proposed $90.6 million.

The mayor expects the new chief to achieve both the saving and the job protection within the proposed budget.
WOW. Stothert even worked in some Republican magical mathematics. Is there anything our pistol packin' mama can't do?

Except for running a city in an adult, competent manner, I mean.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Seat with a privileged view

The view from my seat at Tuesday's LSU-North Carolina game at the College World Series was stellar.

The game? Not so much.

In my humble opinion, my town -- Omaha -- is becoming America's next great city. Officials in other towns like to say things like that; Omaha just does it.

MY HOPE, and my expectation, is that the old cow town on the banks of the muddy Mo will just keep up the good work, surviving even the ideological idiocy of its new Republican mayor, Jean Stothert, who as a councilwoman last year took the lead in negotiating a new fire-union contract that broke the city budget and who now vows to balance it without raising taxes or diminishing essential city services.

That's an easy task if you believe in magic.

Unfortunately, we're now starting to get an idea of how Her Honor defines "essential city services." Public libraries would not be among them, according to the Omaha World-Herald. 
Omaha Public Library branches could close and other service cuts could be made in light of budget cuts proposed by Mayor Jean Stothert, the head of the city’s Library Board said.

The Omaha Public Library Board will discuss the potential cuts today, board President Stuart Chittenden said in a Tuesday memo to the mayor.

Chittenden said a $13.1 million library budget suggested by Stothert for 2014 “will require reductions in both services and resources.”

According to Chittenden’s letter, the library is facing a potential cut of nearly $393,000 for the rest of 2013 and all of 2014.

Last week, Stothert said city department directors had submitted 2014 budget proposals that exceed forecast revenue by roughly $20 million. The city also faces a revenue shortfall of about $13.5 million in its 2013 budget.

Stothert asked the directors last week to cut their 2014 budget requests to certain targets, although she declined to identify the specific numbers for each department.

Department directors were to submit their trims to the Mayor’s Office by the end of business Wednesday, Stothert said.
LIKE THE I-got-mine right wing of her party (And is there any other wing in the GOP anymore?), Stothert is happy to give a free ride to those who don't need one while balancing the municipal ledger on the backs of those who can't afford a beautiful view from the ol' ballgame . . . or regular cybertrips to Amazon.com.

The genius of Omaha is an engaged citizenry and a civic elite fiercely protective of the family jewels -- the city's economy and its quality of life. Pray God that Omaha's own Marie Antoinette shortly will be put in her place by her betters -- an expansive group here in River City, as it turns out.

Now back to your regularly scheduled ballgame.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

The hefty troll of census acquisitions


I am from Louisiana. Thus, I have seen some political train wrecks in my time.

But this one in Port Allen, just across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge, takes the cake.

All you need to know is this: In five months in office after her November election, Mayor Deedy Slaughter billed the taxpayers for a personal trip to President Obama's inauguration, raised her salary by $20,000 when no funds had been budgeted for that, hired her brother-in-law as chief of staff, fired the city's chief financial officer -- pant, inhale -- was ordered by a state court to reinstate the city's chief financial officer, subsequently took away the chief financial officer's authority to deal with finances or sign checks, complained to the U.S. attorney general that white council members were running a smear campaign against her because she's black -- wheeze, gasp -- and hasn't yet gotten around to formally introducing her city budget proposal, even though the new fiscal year begins July 1.

But at a council meeting Wednesday, Deedy explained it all: "I been witch hunt since Day 1. I been fighting acquisitions after acquisitions."

Well, if you put it that way. . . .

For all the fun the local newspaper and Channel 9 have been having with this pluperfect example of civic dysfunction in the Gret Stet, Channel 2 in Baton Rouge, WBRZ, has been having more. Here's a f'rinstance from February.


NOW, if you're not from Louisiana, do not do an Internet search for any of this stuff. Chances are, as a non-native, you don't have the stomach for it . . . or a brain acclimated since birth to craziness like this.

Go in cold, and you may never emerge from the secure wing. It would be akin to a Mormon partying with Keith Richards -- you just know that's not going to end well.

Sooner or later, the guy unaccustomed to even caffeine is smoking anything that will burn and chugging anything in a bottle and snorting anything that will pass through a straw . . . and then he can't remember what happened next.

In this case, you -- the outsider -- might stumble across a local Internet forum or something and see how poorly everyone is acquitting themselves in what became a racial pissing match about three seconds in. You'll come across the N-word, and eventually you'll start thinking representative democracy is way overrated.

Just save yourself the trouble. Enjoy the show. Try not to think about how this isn't reality TV but, instead, is reality somewhere in these United States.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Looking down on bikes from the Tower of Babble


This is America. This is 2013. Everybody's a radical.

Especially our dominant stripe of "conservatives."

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the kind of radicalism I'm talking about like this:
b : favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions
c : associated with political views, practices, and policies of extreme change
For all of human history, mankind has had to recognize a simple constant -- there are limits. To everything. We are not gods, though some have aspired to the job, and though over millennia we have managed to expand our human ones, the expansion has come at great cost, and that expansion of limits has not meant elimination thereof. 

Like many of their party cohorts, a couple of "conservative" Republican candidates for mayor of Omaha never got the memo about the limitations inherent to the human condition. Apparently, Dan Welch and Dave Nabity think Almighty God has decreed that Americans have a limitless right to burn limitless amounts of petroleum in a limitless number of automobiles on a limitless expanse of concrete and asphalt.

IN A political culture as deeply silly and shallow as our own, this inevitably leads to an assault on . . . bicycle lanes. Do reporters at the Omaha World-Herald even try to keep a straight face when covering politicians exercised over the Civic Menace of Bicycle Lanes? God, I couldn't. 
The Omaha mayoral candidates were all over the road Tuesday on those two big-city issues, with several questioning the wisdom of Mayor Jim Suttle's decisions to hire a bike czar and to develop bike lanes downtown.

Republicans Dan Welch and Dave Nabity both criticized Suttle for parts of his bike initiatives, including the hiring of a czar from California for $65,000.

“Not wise,” said Welch.

“Out of touch,” said Nabity.

Both men questioned the bike lanes. Welch said he drives Leavenworth Street every day and believes that the lanes are tough on traffic.

“I haven't seen a bike yet, but we're backing up traffic,” Welch said.

Nabity agreed: “It was a lot of energy about something that wasn't really moving the ball down the field.”

Suttle, the only Democrat in the race, stood by his bike-friendly initiatives.

He said that when he became mayor, he decided to adopt an all-inclusive transportation policy that took into consideration all modes of movement, including foot traffic, trolleys, buses and bikes.
I GUESS nothing screams "raging irresponsibility" like making an effort to reduce the amount of complex hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide we daily spew into the atmosphere over our fair city, save a bit of money we'd otherwise be dumping into our gas tanks, conserve a limited natural resource and burn a few pounds off of our limitless backsides.

For the sin of championing conservation, Jim Suttle has earned the ire of self-proclaimed "conservative" mayoral candidates, pontificating from their political towers of Babble and apparently as in love with the notion of the human ego unrestrained by notions of excess or modesty as the most committed utopian revolutionary.

All you need is gas.

Make cars, not bikes.

Power to the Porsche.

Because that's how we roll.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Hometown hurricane inside baseball


I've been in the Midwest for a while, y'all.

This means I have grown accustomed to looking to local government for, well . . . government. This means I've grown unaccustomed to looking to local government for entertainment.

Then another hurricane hits Louisiana and I end up glued to the computer, watching the hometown TV news online, and suddenly I'm confronted by some clown dressed unconvincingly in police casual as he tries to rock it like Clint Eastwood rockin' it like Dirty Harry.

Again, unconvincingly.


And I'm thinking "What the f*** is this?"

THIS THOUGHT LASTS for a split second. Of course, it's the mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden (right).

And of course, it's a hurricane. Hurricanes mean that Baton Rouge mayors have to start acting all bad ass -- it's a city ordinance or something, I think.

They have to tell people obvious things as if the fine citizens are abject morons -- which, of course, many are. They have to threaten to arrest all those potential offenders of the public order, throw their asses in jail and then laugh when Yankee civil-rights advocates demand that arrestees be supplied with soap on a rope.

I think I even saw Kip do that corner-of-the-lip thing. He even may have said "punk" a couple of times, but don't hold me to that. I was laughing pretty hard -- it all was soooooooo Baton Rouge.

I MEAN, if you were a looter, would you be deterred by the sight of . . . that?

Me neither. By the way, nice flat screen you have there, Your Worship. And you keep the jewelry and cash where again?

And for what it's worth, I think the Boss Hogg look (top) would work a lot better for you. And if you could have a joint press briefing with Gov. Bobby Jindal when he's doing his "Mister Rogers on speed" act, that would be great.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Well, that's done with


Unbelievably, Jim Suttle survived his own campaign. Not to mention Tuesday's mayoral recall election in Omaha.

This is testament to the basic decency and even temper of the local electorate, as well as to fate handing hizzoner such an obviously self-interested and vaguely creepy lynch mob. It helped that the recall campaign's money man blatantly wanted Suttle's job for himself.

And the prospect of Dave Nabity as Omaha's mayor is enough to drive a man to . . . Council Bluffs.

Iowa, that is.

Gamblin' joints, trailer parks.

Suttle lived to fight out another couple-odd years
at city hall -- or a couple of odd years, take your pick -- by 51 percent to 49. It shouldn't have been that close. (See "Recall People, Creepy" and "Nabity, Dave.")

But it was that close, and it would be hard not to lay that one right at the clay feet of Forward Omaha, the moniker for Suttle's anti-recall effort, and its insane scheme to round up the homeless at local shelters, bus them to the election commissioner's office to register and vote, and then pay them $5 to "train" as "canvassers."
Wink wink, nudge . . . know what I mean, know what I mean?

That a move as smooth (not) as that was a godsend to the recall forces is evidenced by the election mailer above. Several of those went out in the campaign's waning days. And ads like this one began to flood the Omaha airwaves:



SEE WHAT I mean?

Without Suttle's political "friends" handing Nabity's Citizens for Omaha's Future the baseball bat it used to bludgeon the mayor, the spread -- again -- really shouldn't have been just 2 percentage points. Not even close.

At the outset of the recall effort, an Omaha World-Herald poll found that only 47 percent of respondents favored recalling Suttle, despite his 33-percent approval rating. Some 39 percent in the survey favored ousting the mayor, while 14 percent just didn't know.

Not only that, but according to the World-Herald's poll story Oct. 24, just about everybody had at least some misgivings about the whole thing:

If a recall election were held, Suttle might benefit from uncertainty over his potential replacement. The poll found that a large majority was concerned “somewhat” or “a lot” about voting in a recall election without knowing who the next mayor would be.

That concern was expressed even by about half of those who said they would sign a recall petition or vote to remove Suttle.

THAT WAS A LOT for the anti-recall forces to work with. They squandered it. More precisely, Forward Omaha squandered that public-opinion largess -- all in one swell foop, as a popular Omaha disc-jockey used to say decades ago.

If all the mayor's men had managed to pick up just half of the undecided vote -- which you kind of figure could break that way unmolested -- Suttle wins in a cakewalk. Instead, the undecideds went roughly 10 percentage points to 4 percentage points for the recall-istas.

When Forward Omaha showed up at the homeless shelters with those school buses, the only bum's rush ended up being that of undecided voters into the "throw the bum out" camp. No doubt that brought a smile to even the angriest recaller's face.

In the end, though, the anti-Suttle camps garnered fewer votes by Tuesday night than signatures collected on recall petitions, and just 8,000 more votes than the final number of names verified by the Douglas County election commissioner back in December. Basically, the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee and Citizens for Omaha's Future didn't accomplish too much during the electioneering phase of the recall effort.

NOT ACCOMPLISHING much, however, beats beating yourself every time. Except in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, where the Good Lord watches out for little
children, fools, drunks . . . and Jim Suttle.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

As inevitable as the January cold



Two comments and a question about Omaha's mayoral recall election next week:

First off, you knew this was coming, didn't you? The mailer (above) by the people seeking to recall Mayor Jim Suttle, I mean.

It was inevitable the second the supreme idiots in charge of Forward Omaha -- the largest
anti-recall group -- decided it would be a fine idea to bus the homeless to the election commissioner's office to register and engage in a little early voting. Well, that and get paid $5 for "training" as election workers (wink . . . smirk).

Second, I really, really hope the Nebraska State Patrol finds probable cause for arresting these morons for something, that they are prosecuted, that they are convicted, and that the judge throws the book at them . . . though misdemeanors the charges be. Political stupidity of that magnitude -- particularly that which sullies the electoral process -- ought not to go unpunished by the universe.

I'll probably still vote to retain Suttle in office, but it'll be a close call after this fiasco.

The main reason to vote "no" in my book is the threat of a
Mayor Dave Nabity. That eventuality would
soooooooo be deep into "abandon all hope" territory for this fair city.

Still, one must harbor at least a couple of grave doubts about Suttle after he failed to immediately fire --
not just demote -- anyone connected to the bus-the-homeless abomination.


And now the question:
The pro-recall mailer above directs folks to this video on Tom Becka's KFAB-radio web page. How is it, exactly, that some recall-istas came to be staking out the election office from a perfect vantage point for taping the homeless folks come off the buses wanting to know where the hell their $5 was?

Just asking.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Brother, can you spare a vote?

There's really only one rule that matters as you try to save an elected official's job amid people hell-bent on throwing him out of office prematurely.

That would be "don't give people more reasons to recall your boss."

Let's just say that with friends like Forward Omaha, Mayor Jim Suttle doesn't need enemies. But as it turns out, the enemies on Suttle's payroll are a hell of a lot more dangerous that the ones who have been out to get him for months now.

Forward Omaha's argument to keep Suttle in the mayor's office is, simply, that barring malfeasance or criminal activity, people really have no good reason to kick an elected official to the curb. We have these things called "elections," and they ought to be respected.

GUESS WHO just associated the specter of "criminal activity" with the mayor? And guess who never got the memo about digging-abort procedures in the event of a hole?

And guess who was trying, it would seem, to turn every homeless person in Omaha into a "no" vote on the recall, either by hook or by crook?

And guess whose harebrained scheme just blew up in Jim Suttle's face?

It's all in this morning's
Omaha World-Herald, these tales of yet more homeless roundups, yet more shady promises of turning -- wink wink, nudge nudge -- society's ultimate outcasts into respectable campaign canvassers overnight. Frankly, one would be forgiven for thinking this had to be a case of vote buying and election fraud, because the whole notion is otherwise just too incredibly moronic to be legit:
When campaign workers called the Open Door Mission and asked if they could load up homeless people and drive them to the election office — with the promise of $5 and a job — they were told “no” two days in a row.

It appeared to be an attempt to “exploit” the homeless and it was wrong, said Candace Gregory, head of the Open Door Mission.

The refusals, however, didn't stop Forward Omaha from sending three buses to the homeless shelter Wednesday and loading up about 10 men before a staff member with the shelter intervened, Gregory said.

(snip)

The campaign handed out fliers to the homeless people Wednesday that clearly urged voting “no” and included a sample ballot with the “no” marked.

“I strongly agree they have the right to vote, but not in this circumstance, where they're told to ‘Vote this way and you get this (money),'” said Gregory, who noted the mission provides its clients with transportation to polling places on Election Day.

She also said many of the homeless people did not make the distinction that the $5 was payment to attend a training seminar. Some thought they'd get the money if they voted.

Noelle Obermeyer, a spokesman for Forward Omaha, said the person who called the Open Door Mission was a volunteer. She said the volunteer did not tell anyone in a leadership position in the organization that the mission had rejected the request.

She also said the fliers distributed were not produced by Forward Omaha and were not handed out with the organization's approval.

“Leadership didn't know about these things,” said Obermeyer.

WHAT? This strains credulity, to be charitable.

"Leadership didn't know about these things"?

The fliers distributed weren't a product of Forward Omaha?

Nobody said anything to anybody about the homeless shelter telling the anti-recall group to take a hike
two days running? We're really supposed to believe this?

Not credible. Not credible at all. People are gullible, but gullibility has its limits.

And Forward Omaha just blew right though them.

THE MAYOR doesn't need to send over a staffer to be the group's new overseer. The mayor needs to send over a staffer to can every Forward Omaha official who left fingerprints on what may be a debacle of criminal proportions.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Can you help a mayor out?


I'd like to have been at the Forward Omaha staff meeting that birthed the bright idea of busing the homeless to vote early in Omaha's mayoral recall election . . . and then paying them $5 for "training" on how to canvass voters.

I really would have liked to be there. That kind of stupidity -- a public-relations
(at a minimum) gaffe of such complete idiocy that it almost makes one wonder whether the recall-istas have a point -- doesn't come around all that often. It's kind of like a total solar eclipse of dumb . . . you kick yourself if you miss it.

Anyway, the Omaha World-Herald, in this afternoon's paper, tells the tale of why Mayor Jim Suttle is probably as good as dead. And why Omaha is on the cusp of sliding from everyday, ordinary chaos into real chaos -- the kind where there are fistfights at City Council meetings and lawyers trying to figure out how a city can file for bankruptcy.


NO, REALLY. Read this and stand in awe:
A decision to bus homeless people to the election office by Mayor Jim Suttle's campaign has prompted an investigation by the Nebraska State Patrol and an apology from the mayor.

Suttle says his campaign will no longer bus the homeless to the election office on the same day they are paid $5 to attend a get-out-the-vote training seminar.

But Suttle says he stands by his decision to offer a ride to people in east Omaha who wanted to cast an early vote in west Omaha. But he says the busing plan should never have been mixed with the training seminar.

He says he did not know about the combination until after the fact.

“Unfortunately, someone from Forward Omaha decided to combine the dual efforts to assist voters and recruit election day workers. This was a mistake,” said Suttle.

The busing controversy ignited criticism around Omaha, amid reports from a witness at the election office that the homeless men and women were coached on how to vote and were paid $5 after — or before — they cast a ballot.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said he asked the Nebraska State Patrol to investigate the incident, because he wants to ensure that people have confidence in the election process. “It seems to be a question of perception. It's important people believe in the process. If there isn't any impropriety, that's fine,” said Kleine.
ACTUALLY, I was once at a staff meeting where something that spectacularly dumb was floated. The only difference was that particular spectacularly idiotic brainstorm was allowed to eventually blow itself out before the public could get a hold of it.

You can read all about that one, at a radio station we'll call Pope FM to protect the guilty, here. Nevertheless, I'll give you just a little taste from the 2002 diary:

Honestly, I desperately want to give the station a contemporary, non-dyspeptic sound. I desperately want to reach out to young people. But in such a short time, you can only do what you can do with the resources you have. And you have to be deliberate in what you're doing.

Buying a Humvee, I don't think, can be described as exercising due deliberation.

That's right, ladies and germs, Don wants to get someone to donate the scratch for a Humvee -- the Pope FM Humvee -- which we then would have painted like the Vatican flag to play off the theme "The Church Militant."

I am the only convert left on the staff, and I can't convince these zealots how badly that might piss off people who have no clue what the Church Militant is. So much so that we wouldn't have the opportunity to explain it (and so much so that it might not make a difference when you do).

And then we will face the reaction of the Protestants. ;-) As a friend comments about such things, "Their zeal consumes them."

Apart from the PR-nightmare possibilities, I can think of a lot neater things $35,000 could buy instead of a used Hummer.

IN THIS CASE, like I said, the plan was allowed to quietly die despite the initial enthusiasm. Sometimes, the good Lord is just looking out for you.

And sometimes He's not. Enter Forward Omaha and its guy, Suttle.

It's amazing how self-absorbed some folks, some entire organizations, can be. It's amazing how unaware some folks can be.

You take a nasty, nasty recall battle. Add a seriously divided city. Throw in the Age of the Tea Party. Season liberally with an ongoing, severe budget crisis brought on by severe recession.

Add a bunch of homeless people -- some of them seriously down on their luck, others seriously chemically dependent, yet others seriously mentally ill. All of them not exactly civically engaged.

Round them up at a local homeless shelter to go vote early, if not often. Bus them out to the 'burbs to vote at the election commissioner's office. Make sure they vote the right way. Give them a fin for "training."

Doug Einung, 54, of Omaha stood in line with one busload of men and women for about 35 minutes Wednesday. He said the homeless were repeatedly urged to vote “no.”

“Everybody was getting directions from her, and she was telling them to vote ‘no.' And, some of them, they weren't paying attention. They'd get up close (to the voting booth) and one guy asked, ‘How are we voting again?' And she'd say, ‘No,' ” said Einung, who described himself as a conservative who supports Suttle's recall.

Einung said one of the men in the group smelled of alcohol.

But Einung said he heard no talk of money.

One homeless man, Michael Sergeon, had initially told reporters on Wednesday that he was paid $5 to vote. A few minutes later, Sergeon retracted his statement, saying he was paid $5 to hand out campaign brochures.

WHAT'S THERE to be misunderstood? More importantly, what is there in any of this to convince Omahans that booting Suttle, taking the budgetary hit from all those elections and reaping -- possibly -- the whirlwind wouldn't be an improvement over a mayor who puts his political life in the hands of the Keystone Kops?

To employ the lofty language of political science . . . holy crap!

Let's not even get into the persuasive art involved in some scruffy dude trying to hand you a "Vote No" brochure between requests for "anything to help a brother out" and a smoke.

No, I'm looking at the newspaper, and watching the local news on TV, and I'm starting to think I'm back home in Louisiana. Just what Omaha always aspired to.

The Mayor Suttle Recall Committee might have started the race to the bottom by hiring some champions of the world as petition circulators, but Forward Omaha may have just emerged a winner. This, of course, means Jim Suttle may have just emerged a big loser.

Well, I hear Louisiana's former governor, Edwin Edwards, is getting out of the federal pen. Maybe somebody can slip somebody a little somethin', bend a few Nebraska state laws and get him on the mayoral ballot.

Time to embrace the chaos, 'cause chaos is what we're likely to get.

Monday, January 03, 2011

Beware this New Year's resolution


We're screwed.

Omaha's embattled mayor, Jim Suttle, has a New Year's resolution as he steels himself for a recall vote this month. It's to better listen to us, the citizens of this fair city.

Like I said, we are so screwed. I mean, we thought the city was broke. That things were bad enough to recall Suttle for, among other things, not listening to us. Wait until he
does start listening to the vox populi -- we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Trust me, the city will be bankrupt in a week if the mayor is sincere about all this listening stuff.


FOR YEARS, the Omaha taxpayer has railed about high property taxes. The Omaha driver has railed about high wheel taxes. The Omaha consumer has railed about our high below-average sales taxes.

During all those years, nobody cared that city hall was making sweetheart deals with the police and fire unions to buy labor peace (and defer pay raises) in the name of holding the line on property taxes, because that's what the voters wanted. It was the municipal version of taking out a home-equity loan to pay down the credit cards --
after all, what could go wrong?

We're entitled, don't you know? Since the last economic slump -- the one before this, the mother of all modern economic slumps -- the Omaha voter has demanded, and gotten, almost-annual property-tax cuts.
And then. . . .

Chickens. Homaha. Roost.

You know what started to fly then. In fact, it started to hit the fan. The tax revenue stopped flowing, and the bills kept on coming. The city pension fund was about broke.

"Cut the budget!" the angry voter says.
"Not THAT part of the budget!" a hundred angry neighborhood associations and civic groups demand.

"Where's my property-tax cut?"

"Fill the damn potholes!"

"Don't close my library!"

"The cops and firefighters are making out like bandits! Stop giving away the store!"

BUT WAIT . . . the cops and firefighters won't agree to that. The contract fight will end up in arbitration. Omaha will get screwed in arbitration -- it always has. Take the concessions the mayor got.

"The cops and firefighters are making out like bandits! Stop giving away the store!"

No, really, this is the best we can do. We bargained the Cadillac owners down to a nice Chevy.

"The cops and firefighters are making out like bandits! Stop giving away the store!"

You're not making sense. The Commission of Industrial Relations will not rule kindly for the city. That's almost a lock.

"Recall the cop-coddler!"

IF IT were me in the mayor's office, I'd be tempted to resign and let the next sucker try to figure out -- after carefully listening to the fine citizens of Omaha -- exactly how one goes about letting the people have their cake and eat yours, too.

Good luck to Mayor Suttle. He's going to need it, particularly if he survives the recall election.