December 7, 2010

Comments In the Spotlight

Under our post yesterday, one Ken Hubbs remarked --

"Did anyone see the Spokesman? Is the Mayoral opinion piece a message to the community or a campaign 2011 mail piece? He goes way beyond discussing the issues at hand and lays direct blame at the feet of the Council. He cites three separate issues and then goes on to heap blame directly on “The Council”. I’ve seen previous Mayors use the Spokesman before as a tool to disseminate information on issues. I’ve even seen the prior Mayor use it as a tool to pursue his political spin on various issues. However not even he ever used this publically funded mail piece to directly attack other elected officials."(sic)

For those who may have missed the latest issue of the Spokesman, and the particular Mayoral message being discussed, here you go --



A further exchange took place later --
Anonymous said...

"Hubbs,

You can call it "blame," but each thing Schmidt said the Council did is what the Council did. That would make it fact. Do you have something against facts?"

December 7, 2010 9:03 AM


Ken Hubbs said...

"No I have something with people using taxpayer funded resources for political purposes. What happened may be fact, but the implied reason is opinion."

December 7, 2010 11:25 AM

The PRU Crew felt our faithful PRU readers may wish to review what Mayor Schmidtzkrieg had to say about the use of taxpayer dollars and resources for the promotion of political agendas, in a discussion regarding Veterans, PBS, and Bill Moyers, back when Mayor Schmidtzkrieg was still just a lowly Alderdunce --
"I do not relish the thought of my tax money going to fund someone like Moyers so that he can despouse his agenda on my dime. And that, my friend, is my fair and balanced view."(sic)

As for the PRU Crew, we're wondering if Mayor Schmidtzkrieg still believes "The Spokesman provides a service which is a cost-effective way of distributing information to the citizens," given his statements about the City of Park Ridge being on the "brink of financial disaster" and his repeated professions of his preference for "fiscal conservatism" and only spending on "essential City services."

Is the Spokesman an essential City service?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

PRU:

I like getting it but I think it isn't essential.

Anonymous said...

I am reminded of a very old, bad joke.

Q- How do you tell the Mayor is being a hypocrite??

A - His lips are moving.

Anonymous said...

We have two papers and two blogs and the cities web site. If people haven't got information from those places by the time they get a Spokesman every other month then they are working pretty hard not to get information. The Spokesman has always been a rah rah propoganda sheet for the city government. Now we have the mayor using it for political campaigning. I say get rid of it. It is worthless.

Anonymous said...

4:15

Do as he says, not as he does!!

Anonymous said...

I can't say I agree with the Spokesman is worthless, but I do agree with it is not essential.

Father McKenzie said...

I like getting it, too, but the Spokesman is a relic from the days of blacksmiths and gas lights (wait a minute....gas lights....).

At any rate, the people can get all the info they need (and more) online. Or they can call City Hall if they have a question. If the Spokesman is going to be used as a propaganda tool by the mayor, all the more reason to shut it down and spend the money on a police officer or something else useful.

Anonymous said...

Father:

Go to city Hall??? Ask a question?? Are you mad?? Why the city and all associated organizations should be so transparent so that all potential questions are available on their website. If information is not available one should make all kinds of horrible assumptions about their motives.........whoops!! Sorry, wrong blog!!!

Bean said...

Wrong blog...indeed.

I found a portion of Mayor DipSchmidt's message particularly galling...

"The Council overrode three vetoes of funding for community groups which cost the City nearly enough to pay for rehiring a police officer."

Ooooooh, reeeeeaaaaally...

Well, let's take a wee bit of a closer look at that...

The contributions totaled $190K for all community groups. Mayor DipSchmidt vetoed the full $190K.

The clowncil sustained ALL but $68K+ of that originally vetoed $190K. That leaves a little OVER $120K...which could be used to "re-hire" a police officer...and STILL have money left over.

So! I look forward to the next clowncil meeting where Mayor DipSchmidt suggests using the "saved/sustained through veto" amount from community group contributions to re-hire a police officer!

Anonymous said...

Schmidt is talking out of both sides of his mouth again. Its nothing new.

Anonymous said...

The Mayor has not intentions of rehiring any police. He is talking out of his @$$ not his mouth and he is doing it only to try to sound good for the citizens and blame the Aldermen so he can get his own people elected.

The Pru gave ideas for saving police jobs and cutting community groups and the Mayor did his own thing. If he care about the police he would have listened to the Pru.