i was on an awsome blog last night (solinsoldotna) and was made very aware i have a lot of work to do to this blog if i want to "measure up". I would close mine down if we were both just writing about the same thing but his is pretty broad and mine is wanting to focus in on what I see and hear at meetings and how I believe it will affect my voting in the future. i already have formed an opinion about some of the assembly members. the informed kenai voter is me. I want to look into all the meetings for my own knowledge.
well with all that siad... i have to get to work setting up handy links and pithy remarks supporting my many opinions about these meetings. I also have to listen to last nights kenai city council meeting since I was unable to go in person. About that... listening to someone or reading thier comments is a good way to get half the intent of what they are saying. the facial expresions and gasps and head nods of the elected and appionted official not to mention the reaction of the public spectators is defenently the other half of the conversation.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
the third and final main event of the night
well with that out of the way we moved on to what gets me excited about the political arena the main event. this i believe was to be discussed last and least. so lets get to it already.....
-Chumleygate
ok maybe thats to extreme. I like the chumleys as much as the rest of the kenai, they haveworked hard, built a successfull bussiness, hired a lot of our friends and nieghbors, and are down right good folks. that said lets get to the facts. the borough needed some equiptment and chumleys had it. Hugh chumley had hired onto the mayors staff as chief of staff and not filled out a single form which was necessary for this not to be a conflict of interest and when this was found out poeple started saying he got the sell becuase of his new position. (thats a very crude outline of the situation but consise).
so the mayor got right on fixing the problem and all (most) of the money was returned to the borough. all fixed right? wrong. so now someone decides to absolve mr. chumleys oversight of the rules and try to "restore his reputation" by waiving the requirements that got him in trouble in the first place. the argument with this is that mr. chumley didnt know about the form and had even tried to find out if there was anything that needed to be filled out. failing to find anything he proceeded with the job at hand and found himself in trouble for not knowing about this form (i know I'm sounding redundant its becuase this was all drilled into our brains for about 30 minutes).
there was champions for both sides: one saying - forgive mr. chumleys ignorance becuase it was an honest mistake (which is likely) and the other saying - all has been righted so why are we now needing to pass anything. the final blow came from assemblypresident sprague when he stated that after reviewing the facts and just the facts.... no waiver or special favor would be shown to the newly hired chief of staff mr. hugh chumley.
in conclusion - Ignorance is not a defence. I was told that once by a judge after explaining my misunderstanding of a fishing law for the kenai river. whether you mean to or not, or knew or didnt know does not negate the laws and rules. i found it ironic when assemblyman haggerty stated that he felt it would not be fair for mr.chumley to reciever a waiver and no one else (which was how it was worded by the way) and then mr. chumley chimed in with an agreement along those same lines (he must not have understood the resolution very well either, the part where it siad this would only apply to him and never be used as a presedence in the future.) the right vote was cast by the majority and laws and rules were upheld as indeferent toward person or position. i found assemblyman fischers defense of mr. chumley to be as a friend and not as an assemblyman elected to do the will of the people.
-Chumleygate
ok maybe thats to extreme. I like the chumleys as much as the rest of the kenai, they haveworked hard, built a successfull bussiness, hired a lot of our friends and nieghbors, and are down right good folks. that said lets get to the facts. the borough needed some equiptment and chumleys had it. Hugh chumley had hired onto the mayors staff as chief of staff and not filled out a single form which was necessary for this not to be a conflict of interest and when this was found out poeple started saying he got the sell becuase of his new position. (thats a very crude outline of the situation but consise).
so the mayor got right on fixing the problem and all (most) of the money was returned to the borough. all fixed right? wrong. so now someone decides to absolve mr. chumleys oversight of the rules and try to "restore his reputation" by waiving the requirements that got him in trouble in the first place. the argument with this is that mr. chumley didnt know about the form and had even tried to find out if there was anything that needed to be filled out. failing to find anything he proceeded with the job at hand and found himself in trouble for not knowing about this form (i know I'm sounding redundant its becuase this was all drilled into our brains for about 30 minutes).
there was champions for both sides: one saying - forgive mr. chumleys ignorance becuase it was an honest mistake (which is likely) and the other saying - all has been righted so why are we now needing to pass anything. the final blow came from assemblypresident sprague when he stated that after reviewing the facts and just the facts.... no waiver or special favor would be shown to the newly hired chief of staff mr. hugh chumley.
in conclusion - Ignorance is not a defence. I was told that once by a judge after explaining my misunderstanding of a fishing law for the kenai river. whether you mean to or not, or knew or didnt know does not negate the laws and rules. i found it ironic when assemblyman haggerty stated that he felt it would not be fair for mr.chumley to reciever a waiver and no one else (which was how it was worded by the way) and then mr. chumley chimed in with an agreement along those same lines (he must not have understood the resolution very well either, the part where it siad this would only apply to him and never be used as a presedence in the future.) the right vote was cast by the majority and laws and rules were upheld as indeferent toward person or position. i found assemblyman fischers defense of mr. chumley to be as a friend and not as an assemblyman elected to do the will of the people.
alright so there were a lot of interesting little things brought up in last nights borough assembly meeting including the lease extension given to the tsalteshi trail group ( i probably butchered the spelling of that) and some other basic business but the next main event caught me off guard.
-the selling of land to soldotna for a cemetary
this i thought was a sure thing until its facts were presented in a little more light by assemblyman pual fischer. it seems the land was assessed about 5 years ago for around $145000 and then we were looking to sell it to soltown for a sweet $55000 and while loosing a nice chunk of profit we were doing the cool thing and helping our community out. oh contrare my friend... it turns out that lands current value (according to assemblyman fischer) is upwards of $400+K and the offer the soldotna city council is making for it??????? you guessed it... $55000. what? thats a sucky deal. what idiot thought this was a fair deal? assemblyman knopp pipes in with "I think we should ask fair market value"....NO KIDDING! thats a great idea, boy is he earning it. well i was glad to see this one is headed to public discussion.
in conclusion - considering the approach soldotna city council (according to assemblyman fischeer) is taking toward this , which is one of "give us the land" and "Now", I think we should stick to our guns and hold out for the fair market value of the property or at least a reasonable land swap of some sort.
-the selling of land to soldotna for a cemetary
this i thought was a sure thing until its facts were presented in a little more light by assemblyman pual fischer. it seems the land was assessed about 5 years ago for around $145000 and then we were looking to sell it to soltown for a sweet $55000 and while loosing a nice chunk of profit we were doing the cool thing and helping our community out. oh contrare my friend... it turns out that lands current value (according to assemblyman fischer) is upwards of $400+K and the offer the soldotna city council is making for it??????? you guessed it... $55000. what? thats a sucky deal. what idiot thought this was a fair deal? assemblyman knopp pipes in with "I think we should ask fair market value"....NO KIDDING! thats a great idea, boy is he earning it. well i was glad to see this one is headed to public discussion.
in conclusion - considering the approach soldotna city council (according to assemblyman fischeer) is taking toward this , which is one of "give us the land" and "Now", I think we should stick to our guns and hold out for the fair market value of the property or at least a reasonable land swap of some sort.
It all starts HERE>>>>
Ok so whats this all about? I'm not a political anything except maybe student. i live in soldotna and love it here. I am interested in our local politics and whats happening in our community. I started off trying to find a meeting to attend and found that was a trick in itself. Someone needs to consolidate all the meeting times and dates and purposes into one site or collection of some sort. that being said... i have learned that for every local meeting i will have to hunt its time and place out for myself. I will let all know who are interested on my blog.
so I started the new year already behind because the first meeting i decided to attend was the borough assembly meeting Jan 5 2010. i was told it started at 6:30 and so i showed up at 6:15 to ensure a good seat. the meeting actually started at 7pm and had it not been for the saints football team (Go Saints) receiving a recognition there would have been seating to spare.
so what did I get from the meeting of the borough Assembly? there were three main events....
- first was the beluga habitat issue
this was a compact that was signed and endorsed by the assembly and due to public outcry was brought back before the assembly for reconsideration. what i saw was a lack of thought put into thier original vote from the younger assembly members. one even stated that he had not fully understood the compact. another just flip flopped and crumbled like coffee cake under public testimony. Assemblyman superman made a distasteful comment that the people who showed up to give testimony were unlikely representing the view of the majority on the kenai.
the simple fact was that the supporters of resending the signing of the compact showed up and spoke out in an intelegent and factual manner. whether you agreed or not with mr. knutson or the crew of tesoro the fact is they made sense. the only ones to speak agianst resending the signing gave weak arguments as to why. I guess we're all supposed to just go along with mass media and buy into any hype hook line and sinker.
in conclusion if anyone would have brought an intelligent rebuttal to the table the signing might of stood a chance but this was a clear KO in favor of the resending.
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