I’m not sure when the rest of the rubberstamp council is going to learn by trying to publicly shame Councilor Stehly they only make her more popular amongst her constituents.
Theresa ran on a platform of transparent government, prudent spending and listening to constituents. She beat two well-funded MALE candidates on her message and she continues to stick to her guns. This has pissed off her fellow rubber stamp councilors who are consistently saying she ‘plays the victim card’ and pulls ‘stunts’. Ironically, Stehly is doing EXACTLY what she promised and only continues to get more and more support. Her ‘stunts’ such as handing out flyers and self-funded mailers have only gotten citizens more engaged in their local government. This is a good thing.
Last night it was disgraceful how she was treated by her fellow peers. She held steady despite Starr not being in the room to back her up. You would have to have been in the chambers to see how they continually said things behind her back to each other, rolled their eyes, mocked her proposals and even giggled at her. The mayor tried several times to shut her down and cut her off.
Not only did they look like a bunch of childish brats, their attitude towards her only has the constituents feel sorry for her and want to defend her positions more.
The sad part is that Stehly had two wonderful amendments that she said if they would have passed she would have supported the parking ramp; Not using the 2nd penny to bail out the parking division on bond payments and transparency on the investors.
The mayor’s blindness on transparency has been obvious for a long time, and after he got caught lying about the siding settlement, the citizens don’t trust his ‘word’ on anything anymore. And while I don’t expect the mayor to understand, I would think the council, at least half of them would agree the settlement and lack of transparency broke the citizens trust in their city government and their ‘word’ on if they are investing or not doesn’t mean a hill of beans.
If you listened last night, several councilors, mostly Erickson and Erpenbach, swore they were not investing in the project or their relatives. While I believe them, there is NOTHING in writing saying otherwise. They kept reminding us it was against state law. Oh really?
The mayor quickly shut down the ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ session. He had to. He has violated this clause twice IMO. The first time was when the city granted a TIF to an apartment project his ‘wife’ was investing in. He slipped it by because he had his public works director, Mark Cotter sign off on the document. The second time was when the city gave $500k to a private tennis center that bears his name and has given little to nothing back to public for our ‘investment’.
The rubberstamp councilors need to realize that the citizens don’t trust the mayor’s ‘word’ on anything, anymore, and since they do nothing to fight the obvious corruption, it also reflects on them.
So keep laughing and picking on Stehly, it only makes her more popular.
l3wis 
