Help! Stupid Can't Be Fixed!

Hey Everybody, good Tuesday to y'all,

Well tool man and I went to another political forum Monday at noon. It was held in Vinita this time at a local chain restaurant.

First off the venue was too small for the crowd it attracted. I personally thought the time of day was wrong because at noon, most people are at their jobs.

The Chamber of Commerce hosted the forum and we discovered that no questions from the floor were allowed. No questions of any kind during the forum were allowed. Only after the event and one on one.

The first challenger was the former mayor of Vinita and he got up and began bashing the incumbent sheriff immediately. Not only did he bash him, he bashed the deputies that work for the present sheriff. He made a lot of insinuations and was really, really nasty. I never once heard him mention any qualifications he has for the job of sheriff. I was disgusted that this was allowed by the moderator.

If the only way I could run for an elected office is to bash someone else, then I would never win. All this dude can seem to do is fry fish for benefits and be nasty to other people. He brags about his prowess on making a budget for the city of Vinita when he was in office. The budget is just a list of needs. Making it work is the job.

The city streets are in disrepair,  except for the East side of town. The water treatment plant needed a total refurbishment which it never had during his time in office, which was about 17 years as mayor. Long time, huh?

The waste treatment plant needed several important things repaired that were ignored until Vinita got a new mayor and council and they listened to the plant operators.

He also helped drag the city into voluminous debt to the tune of $2.3 million. That's a huge debt for such a small town. This debt is for the automated water meters, an Internet network system the city would own, and a system of real time communication with video capability for city emergency vehicles. Did the city get all this? NO! The Internet system is non-viable at this point and the computer/computers in emergency vehicles do not provide what was promised. The new mayor and city council are still working on getting the automated water meters to function properly. So far, thousands of dollars extra have already been spent to try to salvage something from the enormous debt we owe.

Two railroad crossings were closed that divided the city while he was mayor. The people on the East side of town are very angry over this, but I've seen some of his signs over there. Why would you support someone that did you wrong?

He served on the board of a trust that was created for no reason that I can fathom for the water meter project. Vinita Utilities Authority was already a trust that could have served the needs of financing the project. Why was the trust created?  I can only give my opinion on the matter and that was to use Vinita's good name to further other projects by the contractor that did the water meters. Oh yes, Vinita is still listed as a beneficiary of this trust and we as a city got dragged into this mess under this guy's tenure as mayor.

If you want truth, I can tell you the truth about this dude. It scares me to think that people might vote for him and let him have a go at our county. We finally got rid of him in the city, now he's trying to come back in law enforcement in the county. As far as I know he has no experience in law enforcement.

My opinion is he was a lousy mayor and he would be a worse sheriff. Frying fish certainly doesn't qualify someone to be a sheriff.

Every other candidate that was there stood and stated what their qualifications were and why they wanted to be elected or re-elected. Only one other candidate threw out a slight dig, but he had a modicum of dignity to know when to stop.

Please cast a common sense vote on June 26, 2012.

Until Later,
Okie Girl @ Home