Of course they are. They don’t understand it (we will get to that in a moment) and they don’t want to ruffle feathers. It reminds of what Greg Belfrage said this morning on his show, about talking about politics at family events, he says he doesn’t. I believe him, because he doesn’t know a damn thing about politics and he is probably afraid he would embarrass himself, and he couldn’t hide from his liberal uncle by hanging up the phone on him while passing the gravy.
Many in the media have chosen to not talk about the open meetings violation because they have told the complainant that it is ‘too complicated’. A city official said that it is NOT a big deal and just an ‘ordinance violation’.
First it is NOT complicated and secondly, an open meetings violation is a big deal.
The city is required to have public input on items that are pulled from the consent agenda. Now mind you, if it is about spending $33 on a squirrel feeder at a park, probably NOT pressing, but still required, but this was about a liquor license for a bar with several questionable police calls and underage violations (the real story here), and the fact that the complainant had told many city officials she was going to speak about the item when pulled days in advance. I think the Chair of the meeting, Mayor Paul TenHaken did not call public input on purpose, because he didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
This is why this is IMPORTANT and should be shared in the media. You may not always agree with freedom of speech, but it is equal for all of us whether you want to talk about a gun stuck up your butt all day, a fertilized egg that has a heartbeat, that AR-15s are standard for EMTs, defunding the police or bars that are allowing teenagers to get pistol whipped when they illegally came into the adult establishment.
The simple, real story here is that the Mayor, Paul ‘Poops’ TenHaken violated the law by not allowing public input and a bar skirted any public rebuke because of a lazy, cowardly city staff and council and an oblivious media that doesn’t want to work to hard, if at all.
Is the infrastructure bill and January 6th investigations complicated? YES. And we have thousands of reports about them we can read every day. Is censoring public input complicated? F’CK NO! And we should have at least 2-3 local media reports about it. But we don’t.
Maybe if the meeting was held in a food truck?
But Food trucks are complicated, too. Have you ever seen their menus? But I guess it depends upon what you want to serve up to the public, and when it comes to open meeting law violations, the press would rather take a bite out of a sandwich then dish-out the truth when it comes to a lack of transparency in government. Because frankly, transparency means nothing to them, it’s tasteless and dry, but a good sandwich is a good sandwich. Food for thought.
#WheresTheMayo? #OverweightedPressCorp #IhaveToReadThis? #IllTakeTheLocalGovernmentSpecial #WheresTheBeef?
Isn’t it time to realize city government is not unlike communist China? There’s no avenue for change. The courts, state, and Feds have bigger problems and could care less. Move outside city limits or wait for the coming revolution. There’s the rich and the poor. If you’ve found a place in the middle class you live in a neighboring city or out of state. It’s the state of the state. Find somewhere other than here.