‘Mayor Transparency’ Strikes Again. City Attorney Stonewalls On ‘Business’ Park Debacle Emails

I’ve lost track of how many times the City has hired JC Brown (their high-priced attorney) to stonewall me on various issues. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say she’s milked the City for at LEAST $9,000 for all my requests she’s denied over the last 28 months.

That’s $9,000 of tax dollars wasted to keep a taxpayer from seeing truth, but who’s counting?

Anyways, I just got denied yet another time. After being stonewalled for asking for a copy of the Impact DataSource “study” of Eco-Turd and its owner – Mike Cour – I made a request for copies of any GOVERNMENT emails relating to the matter.

GOVERNMENT emails that belong to the taxpayer as they reside on GOVERNMENT servers paid for by the taxpayer. I pulled this same stunt in September of 2018 to get my hands on the Azbell Electronics documents relating to the $96,000 no-bid A/V disaster….and they had to cough them up back then.

Guess what they said this time?

I don’t mean to insult the esteemed Ms Brown, but these sound like the scribblings of a madwoman trapped in a refrigerator box, suffering from hypoxic hallucinations induced by inhaling too many of her own farts.

“Engage in negotiations”? Analyzing data?? LOL!! Who will be doing the ‘negotiating’, exactly? The same school of goldfish who have given away the farm in ALL of their previous “negotiations”? Like the following:

Paid $96,000 for a no-bid A/V system when they ALREADY had agreed to a $34,000 system from Broadcast Works.

Paid $220,000 for a building they PREVIOUSLY SOLD (less than 3 years earlier) to a private citizen for $75,000? (Old City Hall).

Paid $170,000 for a no-bid public bathroom at Campbell Park? OVER TWICE the price of an actual HOUSE that is a block from the bathroom.

Paid $128,000 for a shitty, problem-prone elevator from RKJ Construction at City Hall when they COULD HAVE only paid $96,000 to Austin Elevators.

Handed $72,000 in ‘free’ shit to Deorald Finney for his 69 houses he is building in the Stone Valley development.

Handed a ‘FREE’ $150,000 in tax dollars to fellow scumbag and former City council dummy ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison for a detention pond at Brodie Estates.

They are SUCH amazing negotiators! I can see why you want to keep everything hush-hush. LOL. You make me laugh.

Who will be leading these ‘negotiations’, I wonder. Will it be Finley deGraffenreid? The man who has worked in government his entire life? Or perhaps Kathy Kuehne or Delana Toups – two council members who I’m pretty sure have never worked in the private sector either.

Maybe it’ll be Mandy Walsh…who has never started or run a business in her life, I think.

I can’t wait to see how the Goldfish ‘negotiate’ this amazing deal for the City. So far, their record is 0-6 according to my records. But I’m SURE it’ll all work out this time.

Right?

Transparency In City Government Is a Bad Joke

I had a good laugh a few weeks ago when Mayor Talbert opined at the end of a City council meeting [go to the 1:26:45 mark and listen for 45 seconds] about how citizens should be able to ask department heads anything and get answers…that there should be complete transparency.

Her exact words: “I feel like (City) staff and Council oughta be tasked with being accountable to answer on the spot…and..uh…I would be comfortable doing that….that’s transparency at its finest…is…you know…we don’t put off a question, we answer it on the spot”

I chuckled because every single time I ask a department head (IT, LEDC, Finance, etc) OR even Finley himself a question that might actually make them look negligent, incompetent or profligate, ‘transparency’ goes right out the window. This is evidenced by my past questions about the no-bid Azbell A/V contract, the LEDC and ‘business park’ contracts, employee discipline questions, ransomware attack questions…..the list literally goes on and on.

In fact, this ENTIRE BLOG only exists because I asked IT DIRECTOR Monica Wright (July of 2018) a simple question about what appeared to be a ridiculously overpriced NO-BID audio/visual system from Azbell Electronics for the new Council chambers. Her response? To copy and paste a couple sentences from the Azbell bid sheet! When I pressed her, Finley took over immediately and shut down all lines of inquiry. Seems to be a pattern with all “department heads” – they aren’t actually ‘head’ of jack shit, but rather a Finley Finger Puppet dancing to his tune.

Well, I have apparently opened an whole NEW can of worms regarding the City’s health insurance premiums and payouts. I had recently politely requested information that is WELL WITHIN my rights as a taxpaying citizen and guess what? Finance Department head Yvonne Moreno and City manager Finley ‘Elmo” deGraffenreid are once again hiding behind their City attorney and stonewalling me.

When that happens, I just KNOW I am on to a big stinky pile of dogshit they prefer to keep hidden. Good thing I still have MY lawyer on retainer.

Details coming up very shortly! I know you all need SOMETHING to keep you entertained during quarantine. Until then, let’s watch Finley ‘Elmo’ deGraffenreid make the Seven Goldfish dance to his tune…