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TAKE IT TO THE BALLOT

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buddhalite View Drop Down
MUSA Citizen
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Joined: May 11 2017
Location: Middletown
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    Posted: Jul 30 2017 at 4:25pm
Okay look,

I'm not taking any side in this post, but if all y'all are really, truly interested in punching out a couple candidates and grabbing Picard's seat and also unseating the vice-mayor - let me give you a quick tutorial how this can/will happen.

You've got to get two people - both of whom are magnanimous, and wonderful persons who love to talk and meet people - and get the petitions thrown around and signed.  Shouldn't be hard with as many people read this blog.  You've got until August 24th to pick 'em and sign 'em and get 'em filed.

Then - we all have to mobilize.  The realization behind it being that these elections always occur in off-years - so unless there some big other issue on the ballot - turnout will be artificially low.  These two candidates should be in the living rooms of people's houses 6 nights a week - and those hosts should get all their neighbors to come out and meet the candidates.  Once the folks meet the candidate - they then hold their own meet and greet - and you conquer the city the old fashioned way.  You have to take the candidate door to door with you in your neighborhood and talk to the neighbors.  Signs are important - but real-life handshakes are WAY better.  

You pump all that as hard as you can - lower taxes, more jobs, less downtown, more real business development, less restrictive government - one by one, you gotta take the time to make it happen.  I'll support anyone willing - you can have my living room every night - but it's going to take more than just someone printing some signs and hoping it will happen.

Again - it can happen - and it will - but there have to be willing candidates.  Now, who is it going to be?

Apathy on this matter will lead to the status quo.  With as much bellayaching as goes on out here - we should have 10-20 volunteers already!  Who's it gonna be?

Bob
"Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions." -Ludwig van Mises
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whistlersmom View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote whistlersmom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jul 29 2017 at 6:46pm

Vet . . . Thank you for giving our cause a focus and for outlining a plan of action to bring honesty and integrity back to Middletown city government. Every point you made is valid while also being realistic about the feasibility of achieving our goal. I’m sure these ideas are not new to you after fighting this battle for so long.

Since it’s so late in the game this year, and that makes failure more likely, a default plan could be a petition for recall next year. Your idea, Vet!! (Not suggesting that we shouldn’t try this year.) That means we would need five candidates for next year to replace all of council and the mayor. If we started planning now for next year, we may have a better chance. I wonder if we could draw on the inner circle of this forum to run as a block; to at least gain control, straighten things out and then foster some interest in a new group to train to take over from there.?!?

Then, assuming success, we could “clean house” starting with the firing of Doug Atkins (unless he jumps ship first) and work right through the rest of city hall. We could dump all the abusive ordinances; close down the exclusive, expensive and useless bureaucracies and get back to basics.

To the city employees who monitor this forum, we would quickly find out who, among all the employees in city departments, are concerned citizens and who are out just for themselves alone. We know that many city workers are just hanging on til retirement so that they can then escape Middletown. Some, I’m sure have had their jobs held hostage for their silence about less than acceptable practices in the city building. A priority would be to recover funds which were purposely misspent..

But the colossal tangle in the financial department will take some time and expertise to repair and reorganize. There would be no more shell games played with Enterprise Funds and the General Fund.

The pages of this forum are filled with so many political and moral transgressions perpetrated by the current city hall that it is impossible to deal with all of them in the confines of one page. The current and past two and one half years of extreme mismanagement, abuse of power, and fiscal and fiduciary irresponsibility may take some time to correct.

We could hire Nick Kidd as city manager!!!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing" Edmond Burke
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VietVet View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VietVet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jul 28 2017 at 6:49am
Two things that have been discussed many times on this forum.

1. We need to find at least two candidates to start, that will represent what we want based on this forum theme. The two candidates need to present ideas that are in direct contrast to the typical candidates that are consistently offered by the MMF sponsored voting block. Those people are nothing more than programmed puppets with weak personalities who are told what to say and how to vote to keep the city theme fires burning and to support the current city theme of city destruction and image damaging. Eliminating Mulligan on council is crucial as he seems to be a dominant factor on council direction and is an overseer of council members. I remember seeing him at a Josh Laubach community forum at Wildwood Country Club years ago and would imagine he was there for some "say the right thing-coaching and counseling" for the young council member after the session.

2. While two candidates will not make a majority, they both need to be of strong, almost stubborn conviction and not intimidated by what they will face as they oppose the current council theme of not asking questions and not cowering down to the pressure from the likes of Mulligan, the city manager and forceful people like them. It has happened in the past that at least two dissenting council members have been "quieted" when they asked questions and probed into areas that are taboo as to "proper council etiquette"

If these two council members can hang on until the next election, when we will have an opportunity to remove one more MMF candidate, we will have a majority of "MUSA-like thinking" people on council and will be able to control the votes and actually gain control on the city manager's plan for the city and slow his "steam roller" tactics in pushing his agenda. Right now, he gets what he wants when he wants it with nary a whimper from council. Absolutely no checks and balances in this city government at present.

Hard to do? You bet. Impossible to do? Nope. It will take two things to make it happen.

Get the MUSA-like candidates on the ballot. Get the voting block support to overcome the MMF cloned candidate voting block and sit them at the council table ready for action.

Big hurdle to overcome to get enough people to care, get them registered and get them on board as to supporting the MUSA candidates.

I don't know if this can be done but as I see it, this is the only solution to gain control of council in order to monitor and re-direct the priorities for this city and to correct the aimless, misdirected focus this city has had for decades.
I'm so proud of my hometown and what it has become. Recall 'em all. Let's start over.
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buddhalite View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote buddhalite Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jul 27 2017 at 7:54pm
Very valid point.  So, I assume you are running for office?

Bob
"Every government intervention [in the marketplace] creates unintended consequences, which lead to calls for further government interventions." -Ludwig van Mises
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whistlersmom View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote whistlersmom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Jul 27 2017 at 7:50pm


To Middletown’s ‘sheeple’ (sheep and people combined into a new word):

We need your attention! Citizens of the silent, but perhaps no longer, majority (due to the large number of Section 8 residents) who gave up years ago, who have laid down and now wait to be sheared and/or slaughtered; please read the original report, then the paraphrased copy of the following quote. Hopefully you will see the parallels, and comparisons drawn inside the ( )’s! If you can see it, you most likely can draw more parallels of your own! But, if you get bored (hope not) just skip down to “THE END” and read the rest. And then let’s TAKE IT TO THE BALLOT! There is no time like the present to regain control of our city government.


World News Report by EIN Newsdesk EIN Presswire (a press release . . .

Bear Chases 200 Sheep Over Cliff Edge to Their Deaths

Jul 24, 2017 - Trending on EIN Newsdesk quoted from www.theguardian.com

More than 200 sheep have plunged to their deaths in the Pyrenees while apparently trying to escape a brown bear. The bears have been reintroduced to the mountain region over the past 15 years after being wiped out by hunters.

The sheep, which belonged to a farmer in Couflens, south-west France, are thought to have taken fright when the bear appeared in the area last Sunday.

After the predator attacked one of the sheep, 209 others in the flock panicked and hurled themselves off a 200 metre-high cliff on the border between France and Spain.

The bodies of 169 sheep were found the next day at the foot of the cliff in the Spanish village of Lladorre. The other dead animals were found in France.

The Spanish news agency Europa Press said bear fur had been found on one of the dead sheep and would be analysed to try to establish exactly what had happened.

Although the French government will compensate the farmer for his loss, the incident has provoked an angry response from the local branch of the French farmers’ federation.”

Analogy with paraphrasing:

More than 200 sheep (Sheeple, or almost all the people in our city) have plunged to their deaths (have been struck deaf and dumb) in the Pyrenees (in Middletown) while apparently trying to escape (while allowing themselves to be misled, overtaxed and placed into bondage with their property held hostage by) a brown bear (an oppressive city hall). The bears (The occupants of city hall) have been reintroduced to the mountain region over the past 15 years (have become more powerful over the past three decades) after being wiped out (after they were not kept under control) by hunters (by sheeple citizens who failed to keep themselves informed about the operation, integrity and accountability of their city government).

The sheep, which belonged to a farmer (sheeple citizens who were unaware of the lack of honest leadership in their city government) in Couflens, south-west France , (in Middletown) are thought to have taken fright (had lost interest, lost their will and therefore lost control) when the bear (city council) appeared (brazenly declaring that they would decide all governing matters for all the sheeple. Then city council suppressed or ignored any citizen participation and refused to acknowledge the protest of a few citizens who had not been transformed into sheeple. in the area last Sunday over the last several decades.

After the predator (city hall) attacked (and began to abuse their power, tax and spend on everything except the legally required fiduciary responsibilities [public safety and maintenance of infrastructure]; repeatedly showing themselves to be incompetent and/or corrupt; sadly, many) sheep (sheeple) 209 others in the flock panicked (were blindly fooled by a clever city council’s lazy, pompous, self interested propaganda. Council said ‘everything is OK’ and the sheeple allowed council to give all the governing power to the city manager who said she/he would take care of everything for them.) and hurled themselves off a 200 metre-high cliff on the border between France and Spain (And the blinded sheeple sealed their fate as slaves because they forgot about their right to vote the ‘bears’ out of office in Middletown). The bodies of 169 sheep (sleepy, spell-bound sheeple) were found the next day at the foot of the cliff in the Spanish village of Lladorre (have since then been stuck in a quagmire of city ordinances designed to swallow up any and all revenues which will be frivolously spent on employing their cronies as directors of craftily created, new and redundant bureaucracies or on any other desired purpose which will aid in hiding the costly, clandestine, circuitous flow of, sometimes non-existence funds). The other dead animals (Other sheeple who have been caught trying to expose corruption or are being punished for trying to help or volunteer their time and expertise to help others) were found in France (were found in Middletown’s kangaroo court, paying fines for minor violations of the 6” grass or peeling paint ordinances. Some cases were carried to such extreme that, eventually, homes were lost due to inability to pay exorbitant, excessive and cumulative fines which the city had assessed to the sheeples’ real estate taxes for minor violations of abusive ordinances.)

The Spanish news agency Europa Press (The Journal News) said bear fur had been found on one of the dead sheep and would be analysed (said exactly, and only, what the city council told them to say) to try to establish (aid and abet a cover up of) exactly what had happened (. . . the complete ruin of the city of Middletown).

Although the French government (HUD and other government assistance programs and grants, etc., which were often abused,) will (but, may no longer, in some cases,) compensate the farmer (citizenry of Middletown) for his loss (for the city’s self- inflicted problems and misuse of funds;) the incident (plus years of abuse) has provoked (should have provoked) an angry response (and wide spread uprising) from the local branch of the French farmers’ federation (among a shocked and awakened sheeple citizenry.)

THE END

If only we had an active, informed federation of Middletown citizens to return our city government to reason and balance. Shall we continue to be ‘sheeple’? Are there ANY responsible, thinking citizens who are willing and able to break the sheepish, blind and dumb mold into which our City Council(s) have pressed us?

All power and control has been usurped and placed in the hands of a city government which is out of control and which represents a few elite citizens to the detriment of the silent (now oppressed) majority. Years ago, City Council asked for and was given (by a small percentage of Middletown voters at the ballot box) discretionary spending over the city’s Income Tax Revenue and then WITHOUT asking for voter approval, illegally took liberties with ALL city revenues including Enterprise Funds which should NEVER have been used for anything other than their designated purpose.

This circumstance has been exacerbated by the Section 8 residents who vote for every proposed additional Real Estate Tax (such as levies to UNNECESSARILY replace school buildings which, by the way, has NOT improved our extremely poor academic rating). BUT SECTION 8’ers DON’T PAY ONE RED CENT OF REAL ESTATE TAX!!! Most of them don’t work, so don’t contribute to City Income Tax, but they can vote to raise income taxes on all the other residents! They can vote on election of council members and other issues. (Maybe that’s how Council stays in office?) Also quite a number of Section 8’ers may likely be opioid addicts . . . our most recent problem which made national news. We were already the lowest of the lowly dying cities. Now we must jump up to reach bottom.

Aren’t you tired of looking ridiculous in the eyes of our nation? WHAT MORE WILL IT TAKE TO WAKE US UP? TO TAKE ACTION? TO BECOME REAL, VOTING AMERICAN CITIZENS AGAIN? We must not be duped by the City Manager’s claim that others have the same problems and poor conditions that we do. Just look around, WAKE UP! The surrounding area is BOOMING . . . such as West Chester where OUR former Corporate Office of AK Steel relocated. We can be ‘BOOMERS’ too, if we TAKE IT TO THE BALLOT. Vote the predators out!!!! Then hold the newly elected to their promise for change and restoration of honesty and integrity, by staying informed about our city government’s operations. AND SOME OF US MUST BE WILLING TO BECOME THE NEWLY ELECTED! There is no quick fix but we must start sometime! Why not now? Obviously, just pointing out and complaining about our problems is NOT A SOLUTION and WILL NOT SUFFICE.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing" Edmond Burke
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