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News :: Elections & Legislation : Government Secrecy : Political-Economy : Right Wing : Urban Development |
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Satterthwaite's Smokescreen: Charge Others With What You Actually Are Up To |
Current rating: 0 |
by Dose of Reality
(No verified email address) |
14 Sep 2004
Modified: 09:45:40 AM |
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Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite and his minion, Milton Otto, have been slinging charges of "ethics" violations against the mayor's political opponents on the city council. A closer look at these recent bizarre attacks on members of their own party in Urbana reveals that it is a cover up for their own questionable ethics, most notably the back room maneuvering to grant Wal Mart control over Urbana's Comprehensive Plan. |
Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite and his minion, Council Member Milton Otto, have been slinging charges of "ethics" violations against the mayor's political opponents on the city council. A closer look at recent strange goings on in Urbana reveals that this is a cover up for their own questionable ethics, most notably the back room manuveuring to grant Wal Mart control over Urbana's Comprehensive Plan.
The efforts by Satterthwaite and his stalking horse, Otto, have included feeding duplicitous information about Council Member Laura Huth to the News-Gazette after the mayor directed the city attorney to stall on giving Huth a straight answer on how to best resolve any potential conflicts of interest after she became executive director of the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. Then, after Huth went forward based on the purposely vague answer given by the city attorney, Satterthwaite started feeding the press exaggerated claims about "ethics" violations by Huth.
Then the mayor also directed Otto to put forward amendments to Urbana's new ethics ordinance, needed to comply with changes in state law, that went far beyond what the state law called for, specifically targeting council members who work for local non-profit organizations or, more ridiculously, even know people who work for non-profits that might receive city funding.
The idea seemingly was that, despite the fact that the monies involved would not personally benefit anyone, any person who received the same benefits as any other citizen of Urbana might from these organizations was somehow receiving a special benefit.
Thus, this sort of thinking could be used to claim that any member of the council who voted on an ordinance dealing with the Sanitary District who did NOT also have an outhouse, instead of being hooked up to the sewer system, would be in violation of Otto's proposed amendments. The mayor and Otto both tasted defeat in this portion of their smokescreen, but this hasn't prevented the mayor from moving forward with more of his subterfuge.
The latest attack was at last night's (Monday, Sept. 13) council meeting. Still smarting from a procedural defeat at the Monday meeting of the Urbana Public TV commission, where the mayor's efforts to prevent Democracy Now! from being shown on cable went down in flames as the commission unanimously approved a rules change that brought (hopefully) an end to the mayor's obstructionist tactics regarding DN!, the mayor charged that last night in council that Council Member Danielle Chenowyth had a conflict of interest because she voted on an appropriation to extend wireless internet service to downtown Urbana and beyond. This is because her ex-roommate (no relation) is one of those working to bring this community utility to Urbana.
Never mind that he is no relation to Chenowyth.
Never mind that this is not a violation of the old ethics ordinance or the new one.
Never mind that no one will personally profit or benefit any more than any other citizen of Urbana.
Never mind that Urbana's small donation to the community wireless project leverages nearly 10 times as much investment from outside granters, extending the benefits of it more directly to Urbana's business community, which is undergoing a revival, in large part because of a new downtown economic development program that was largely the result of Huth and Chenowyth's hard work (and certainly not the mayor's, who sat on his hands through most of his terms in office as downtown deteriorated.)
Never mind that Satterthwaite and Otto have their own highly questionable dealings that need far closer scrutiny than the News-Gazette and other local media have so far given to their secretive maneuvering in making it possible for Wal Mart to sneak into Urbana, to the direct and substantial profit of one of Otto's relatives.
In fact, the land where Wal Mart wants to locate is currently owned by a relative of Otto's. The mayor was privy to Wal Mart's desire to locate there, despite the fact that Urbana’s pending, but not yet enacted, Comprehensive Plan would not have allowed Wal Mart to locate there, except....
Except that the Comprehensive Plan, several years in the making, including a series of neighborhood meetings involving many citizens in the community giving input into how Urbana should grow in the future, suddenly was put on ice about the time that we now know Wal Mart first secretly approached the city. What did they need? Wal Mart needed a location on the east side of town, instead of in the North US 45 corridor where the city has already made substantial infrastructure investments to encourage future growth there or in the South Philo Road area, which badly needs redevelopment.
The mayor concealed these facts, while directing city staff to place the Comprehensive Plan on hold. Then, after Wal Mart announced its intentions, he set up a process that forced council members to vote on what Wal Mart wanted because of the way it was legally structured by city staff, who the mayor directs. The result is that the citizens of Urbana will be forced to foot the bill to build substantial and costly new infrastructure to serve Wal mart in an area where they did not want it. The costs involved will negate for years any "benefit" provided to Urbana from the sales tax revenue generated by Wal Mart in order to build and extend infrastructure there.
Otto was involved, both through his silence about a plan he obviously knew about and through his subsequent attempts to do the mayor's bidding (payback, you ask? Ask Otto. PLEASE.) These include his sponsorship of adding two at-large council members in a blatant attempt to dilute the progressive majority on the council and the legally unsupportable "ethics" amendment to the new ethics ordinance. Both measures went down in defeat, but it's hard to see that either was ever anything but political grandstanding by Otto and the mayor against their political opponents.
Otto did not even offer a written version of the at-large proposal, a sure sign that he was never serious about it. And the "ethics" amendment was not supported by the state-level enabling legislation, making it questionable that it would have ever been legally enforceable, even if Otto had had the votes to pass it, which he knew he didn't.
In sum, the most recent temper tantrums of the mayor and the obviously incompetent proposals of Otto are a smokescreen.
They are a smokescreen to distract public attention from this not-so-dynamic duo's own smoky back room philandering that will personally profit Otto's relative. Is the mayor fishing for a private sector job if he decides not to run for reelection? He'd certainly make a great Wal Mart manager, but his time trying to use Chicago-style political chicanery should be rapidly drawing to a close, especially so if what he has really been up to receives the attention it so richly deserves.
Related Stories:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/19683
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/19829/index.php
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/19244/index.php
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/19148/index.php
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/15141
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/14955/index.php |
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