Bart's August 6, 2007 Address to the City County Council

This was an interesting example of the Peterson machine in action. To kick things off, the large group of early-arriving citizens (AKA "peons") were herded to the west door of the Servaas Room. The East door was reserved for 'employees'. EMPLOYEES! The employees were ushered in 15 minutes before their employers were allowed in. But wait, there's more! Every seat in the first THREE rows of the gallery was marked with a sign that said 'Reserved by Council Clerk'. The left side of these three aisles was populated by IMPD and Sheriff uniforms while the right side was IFD.

As 7pm grew near, a large contingent of people in regular street clothes was ushered in (through the employee entrance) to fill most of the still-empty seats in the first 3 rows of the chamber. Ordinary citizens were left standing along the side and back walls. But, who could expect Bart to stand in front of a crowd of pissed-off constituents without someone to 'watch his back?'

Melyssa Donaghy was her usual, vocal self, about the disparity between us 'regular folk' and the people who supposedly report to us. This prompted an interesting conversation in aisle 2, smack in the middle of IFD territory. Chief Greeson was chatting with some other white uniforms when one of them ask the Chief who that was speaking up. The Chief replied, "That's our resident bull dyke. Yeah, that's her." That remark was followed with laughter, backslapping and more remarks as the group of 4 IFD officers moved in closer to the Chief. Hardly the sort of thing one would expect at a government meeting. And not the sort of thing that should be expected of the Chief of IFD under any circumstances.

Once The Speech began, it was clear that this was designed as a campaign tool. Bart enumerated everyone who is at fault for the horrible financial situation we face in Marion County. Bart's conclusion was that none of it was HIS fault. From this, then, we can deduce that we don't need Bart. OK, so it's not his fault that property taxes shot up. It's not his fault that county income tax shot up. It's not his fault for any of that. Yet, he's the Mayor, so it's clearly his fault for not stepping up to the plate 7 and 1/2 years ago. It's his fault for not seeing trouble ahead and averting it.

The capper for the evening was Monroe Gray, who got up to call for more openness. What unmitigated gall, in light of his behavior at the previous CCC meeting.

Well, that was perhaps equaled by his response when asked by Councillor Borst to please let the people being barred from entry to the CCB come into the air-conditioned lobby to get relief from the sweltering heat outside. Monroe's response was "I really don't have any authority to say who can come in and out of the building but if the security is there and they hear your plea then I'm sure they'll have no problems lettin' them in." Monroe couldn't put that thought together without Aaron Haith jumping to his feet and rushing over to whisper it into Monroe's ear.

Hell, Monroe, it's just a request, not a friggin' declaration of war. Ike Randolph rose and headed for the door, clearly to take this 'bull' by the horns. A couple others from the 'reserved section' stood up and left, saying "We'll take care of it."

What we had tonight was misdirection and sleight of hand that would make Houdini proud. What we had tonight was a campaign speech - designed to sweet-talk the thousands of angry citizens who made their voices heard the past several weeks, nothing more. In other words, Damage Control.

Since Bart didn't do it, and Bart didn't do anything to stop it from happening, why do we need Bart? Well, we don't. Time for a change!