The Observation Deck

The weekend campaign flyer from the Mayor George campaign accused Councilman Fitgerald of voting against bullets for police. Isn't unsafe to have bulletless police?

I have also heard rumors that Fitgerald intends to force police to exchange their squad cars for tri cycles and wear clown costumes while on duty. This is terrible!!!

Bill, I'm glad you mentioned this. It's a tantalizing post, if only because it gives me the opportunity to explain our procedure a bit.

We pass an annual budget in March, with related ordinances permitting the administration to spend money throughout the year. When those appropriation amounts change, we are often asked to pass additional ordinances revising our original appropriations.

A number of city officials requested changes to their budgeted appropriations amounts earlier this summer after the original budget was passed. The police requested an additional amount, $12,000, for ammunition. Other requests included, for instance, $17,500 for additional prisoner food, $17,000 for an audit, and $2,000 for additional copy paper.

When we received these requests, they were presented by ordinance. The city charter requires that ordinances be read on three separate occasions before passage unless there's an emergency. We were asked to pass all funding changes as if they were of an emergent nature.

We had some discussion as to why we needed to treat the funding changes as an emergency, and ultimately we learned (from the administration, including the police chief) that the above items were NOT of an emergency nature. In other words, the police did NOT require ammunition on an emergency basis, as the mayor's campaign literature suggests.

As such, all seven councilmembers voted unanimously to hold off on passing certain changes in the appropriations, including the ammunition increase, until we could have another public reading as required by the charter. It was all very routine, frankly.

But it should be noted that the councilman who made the motion to delay was actually Mr. Seelie, the mayor's staunchest advocate. Something tells me that tidbit didn't make it onto the mayor's literature.

Kevin Butler
(Council, Ward 1)

Desparate times call for desparate... campaign flyers?

http://www.ci.lakewood.oh.us/pdf/Counci ... 6-0905.pdf

Thanks, dl, for the link. More excerpts above, with my emphasis.

Mr. Butler, was there further discussion regarding those expenditures?

As I recall, we discussed the remaining items in the Finance Committee (Seelie, Madigan, Butler), and then referred the ordinance back to the full council for passage at the next council meeting -- where I believe it passed unanimously, bullets and all.

Correction to my earlier post: The funding changes came in at the end of last summer (2006), not this summer. We had this discussion on September 5, 2006. At the very next meeting, September 18, we unanimously passed the requests for additional appropriations.

See: http://www.ci.lakewood.oh.us/pdf/Counci ... 6-0918.pdf. Ordinance 114-05E.

Do bullets have a short shelf life?

Personally, I believe police are underutilizing clubs or truncheons or bobby sticks. I hear stories about relatives getting beaten by the police or locked up for a day and then released without charges being pressed in the 50s or 60s or 70s. Then I see these people today riding loud-ass minibikes and off road vehicles up and down the street or having loud crack-cocaine fueled diatribes and wish they were clubbed by the police.

Today I received the news from Columbus that the Ohio Elections Commission found probable cause to pursue a complaint against Mayor George's campaign for disseminating the false claim that Councilman FitzGerald voted against the police department’s ammunition needs, among other alleged falsehoods.

I don't post this with the aim of retribution, but to show that when an incumbent, facing the pressure of not being reelected, hires a Beachwood political consultant to enter a Lakewood race after the primary and lower the discourse to the level at which we now find it, he risks having to answer for his decision. Once, before the Elections Commission, and again, before the voters. I'll be interested in what the voters have to say about all this. I'm glad I won't have to wait long.

What other falsehoods?


.

_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

You just lost MY vote, Mr Butler.

When you claim George and his consultant lowered the discourse in this race, you are completely ignoring the earlier inflammatory statements made by Ed Fitzgerald.

Your glee in "reporting" the news is unbecoming to a member of council serving with Mayor George.

BTW, are you quite sure you weren't promised the Law Director job by Ed?

Jim;

alleged falsehoods

Meaning, I assume that there were allegations of other falsehoods, but that the election commission only found cause in the issue of the ammunition.....

Jeff

_________________
To wander this country and this world looking for the best barbecue â€â€

Wow Grace, do you agree with any of his opponents positions or will you just be abstaining?

Jeff

This is starting to be like a very bad version of the "Cain Mutiny." I can never forget the speech by Jose Ferre at the end of the movie.

_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama