Folks, this is what IT is all about.
You are busy -- probably too busy.
You work, you take care of your family, you pay your bills, you exercise, you go shopping, etc, etc. You (most of the time) have little time for being a government watchdog. The beauty of our democratic process is that YOU have the choice to participate or not. I choose to participate, because, I really don't think many of our elected leaders (local, school, state, federal) have our best interests in mind. The "CHANGE" that they are concerned about is that 'change' that you have left in your pocket. So, what do you do, and what options do you have?
I suppose you can go to village hall, and the school board, and the state capitol, and Washington, or you can count on others to do some 'watch-dogging' for you. Plenty exists at federal and state levels, but gets awfully scarce locally like at municipal, county, and school levels. At village hall, you have about 4 people that regulary watch what is going on. 4 out of 19,000 people. Everyone else is there to either try to get something, or to protect what they've already got. YOU are not part of the equation except for the funding part.
YOUR village government has come up with every imaginable and contrived reason (like individual LCD screens in front of board members faces) not to put ITS board meetings on ITS government access channel 25. I find this sad, and unforgivable, since it IS possible currently and over time can be improved.
On this last Monday, March 17, citizen activists AGAIN rose up (on your behalf) and commented on why this is not being done. At the previous meeting (see posting below for detail), about an hour of everybodies time was used again to explain why this was not possible -- surprize, surprize again.
BUT, a new element by a board member was added -- POLICE OFFICER SAFETY. As a further excuse on why videotaping meetings was not going to happen, a sense of prioritization was thrown in to show how many other pressing things needed to be accounted for prior to meeting videotaping.
Comments on the penultimate posting to this one revealed (once again) the ability to occasionally find a 'pearl in pig slop'.
ORWELLIAN was the term used to describe recent activity at Village Hall. I am not going bother you with the definition of Orwellian here (you can do that yourself), but it kind of hit it on the head.
ORWELLIAN OBFUSCATION is the play du jour (or du month, or du year, or du permanance). Please review the video clip below. While at it, take a look at this link: http://www.pleasantprairieonline.com/assessmentsandtaxes/finance.asp -- it directs you to the FINANCE Dept at Village Hall. It shows the 2008 Budget Summary and Budget Presentation. Please review and see for yourself IF the POLICE CAMS were a considered budget item, and it was NOT RECOMMENDED.
(Page 27 of the PRESENTATION (below) and Page 71 of the SUMMARY).
You are busy -- probably too busy.
You work, you take care of your family, you pay your bills, you exercise, you go shopping, etc, etc. You (most of the time) have little time for being a government watchdog. The beauty of our democratic process is that YOU have the choice to participate or not. I choose to participate, because, I really don't think many of our elected leaders (local, school, state, federal) have our best interests in mind. The "CHANGE" that they are concerned about is that 'change' that you have left in your pocket. So, what do you do, and what options do you have?
I suppose you can go to village hall, and the school board, and the state capitol, and Washington, or you can count on others to do some 'watch-dogging' for you. Plenty exists at federal and state levels, but gets awfully scarce locally like at municipal, county, and school levels. At village hall, you have about 4 people that regulary watch what is going on. 4 out of 19,000 people. Everyone else is there to either try to get something, or to protect what they've already got. YOU are not part of the equation except for the funding part.
YOUR village government has come up with every imaginable and contrived reason (like individual LCD screens in front of board members faces) not to put ITS board meetings on ITS government access channel 25. I find this sad, and unforgivable, since it IS possible currently and over time can be improved.
On this last Monday, March 17, citizen activists AGAIN rose up (on your behalf) and commented on why this is not being done. At the previous meeting (see posting below for detail), about an hour of everybodies time was used again to explain why this was not possible -- surprize, surprize again.
BUT, a new element by a board member was added -- POLICE OFFICER SAFETY. As a further excuse on why videotaping meetings was not going to happen, a sense of prioritization was thrown in to show how many other pressing things needed to be accounted for prior to meeting videotaping.
Comments on the penultimate posting to this one revealed (once again) the ability to occasionally find a 'pearl in pig slop'.
ORWELLIAN was the term used to describe recent activity at Village Hall. I am not going bother you with the definition of Orwellian here (you can do that yourself), but it kind of hit it on the head.
ORWELLIAN OBFUSCATION is the play du jour (or du month, or du year, or du permanance). Please review the video clip below. While at it, take a look at this link: http://www.pleasantprairieonline.com/assessmentsandtaxes/finance.asp -- it directs you to the FINANCE Dept at Village Hall. It shows the 2008 Budget Summary and Budget Presentation. Please review and see for yourself IF the POLICE CAMS were a considered budget item, and it was NOT RECOMMENDED.
(Page 27 of the PRESENTATION (below) and Page 71 of the SUMMARY).
By who it was not recomended is uncertain, but EVERY BOARD member had (or should have) reviewed every page of these documents along with the binders that showed detail. There IS NO EXCUSE for re-inventing historical fact or for denying doing one's HOMEWORK. Face it, lights at a ballfield were more important than squad car cams. Intent or neglect are the only explanations.
There it is -- 100% fact. What do you think?
16 comments:
I think anonymous is going to have a coronary! But then, if they actually participated in their local government, these INFREQUENT bot noticeable missteps would be old news ("The REEL TRUTH"?). Those of us that are consistently there, and have been there as much as we can, easily pick-up on these rare errors because we have seen and heard discussions on the item(s) before (we all make mistakes and I in no way am saying that this is a constant problem).
What's interesting is that when you call them on it, they shutdown, or worse, get vicious, when all you were doing is pointing out something that didn't make sense. The Board points out when citizens are wrong (look at Steinbrink's comments about wasting their time and such during video debate), what's the big deal when we do the same? What's the old saying, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".
Yes, Village People,
It is an unfair and unlevel playing field.
They have the chance to HEAR and CONSIDER your CITIZEN COMMENTS before responding (or not).
They have practically unlimited opportunities to respond to your comments and concerns -- some thinly veiled with sarcasm and contempt, and some not so thinly. Such as recent comments about breaking away from the Cartoon Channel are all too common.
AND YET, they continue to claim to be interested in your comments, and when you actually take advantage of that opportunity they take great pleasure in chastising you for 'wasting time', etc.
I suppose they ARE interested when you are saying something they like.
Remember, it is okay to rip you when you are wrong, but sinful to do the opposite.
What a nice bunch!
SSDD...nothing new here, move along.
Same old gripe, same old tired argument.
Anonymous Blogger,
These Poems are for you.
Anonymous Blogger,
Who are you?
Where did you come from?
How did you find me?
No, don't tell
I love mystery.
So we journey together as I
purge my soul, my anonymous blogger
playing a role.
Copyright 2006 Monica Yocom
"Death of a Village"
Here
intimations of death
hang
heavy in the air
Everywhere
there is the stench
of decay and despair
The lake
strangled by
exigencies
of industrialisation
is dying….
and nobody cares
The fish
in the lake
poisoned by
progress’s vomit
are dying….
and nobody cares
The birds
that feed on the fish
in the lake
poisoned by
progress’s excrement
are dying….
and nobody cares
And so
a once-proud village
sustained
for centuries
by the richness
of this lake
dies….
And nobody cares
To that mammon
DEVELOPMENT
our high priests
sacrifice
our customs
our culture
our traditions
and environment
and nobody cares
We blind mice
We blind mice
see what we’ve done
see what we’ve done
We all ran after
Progress’s wife
she cut off our heads
with Development’s knife
have you ever seen
such fools in your life
as we blind mice?
By Cecil Rajendra (with my apologies for a word change)
Dear SSDD Anonymouse,
Aren't you exactly what you preach -- SSDD?
If you offered something different you would be DSDD. Get it?
SBPDD
Same Bad Poetry, DD.
Anonymous
At the feast of your ego, everyone leaves hungry.
There is a huge misconception about the few of us who go to village meetings. WE ARE NOT THERE JUST TO COMPLAIN!!! Obviously we have an interest in local government. We like living in Pleasant Prairie. We like most of the things in Pleasant Prairie. All of us decided to get involved for various reasons. ALL OF US HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE THERE. I, personally, don’t make comments half the time I’m there. My dad comments just as frequently about good things the village has done as he does the bad. Videotaping didn’t start out as a complaint, but an idea.
We didn’t ask the village board to lie to us about why it can’t be done. They chose to. We didn’t ask them to chastise us for wanting video. They chose to.
In the larger scope of our village, there are many more pressing needs than videotaping meetings for broadcast on CH. 25. The fact that they went to such extraordinary lengths to end the video debate is significant. It was bad enough they added unnecessary items such as LCD monitors etc, THEY ACTUALLY USED MURDERDED COPS as a reason. They weren’t done though. At the end, the village president chastised us for wasting the time of the village staff and then personally attacked Alex saying he had better things to do with his time than watching cartoons all day. After going home and looking at the budget for this year, I was appalled to see how much money we spent on improvements for our parks department, but couldn’t find the money to keep our police safe, not to mention the safety of our residents. Surely nobody could argue it more important to have cool parks rather than a properly equipped police department. At the next board meeting, I voiced my disapproval with their comments. Mike Serpe’s response was basically that he was misquoted by me. He just made mention about the police cams mid budget as something he would rather spend money on than videotaping meetings. According to him, police cams weren’t discussed at the budget meetings. This is obviously untrue.
So why is this all significant? There are two main reasons. First, if you look at the content of this blog. There has been some time given to the accuracy of the village meeting minutes. They are not always accurate. It’s not just a typo here or a misinterpretation there. Major lengths of text have been omitted some of which disparaging remarks are made on the record that someone has chosen to EDIT. They use dead cops to keep the meeting off CH. 25 and they edit the “official” meeting minutes. This is not how a government in a free society is supposed to operate.
The second reason is that videotaping meetings isn’t as significant as many other things in the village. If you own a property, it’s likely you have no greater investment. The village board has said many times that when something big comes up people do come to village meetings to be heard. For me that time was when they were discussing the water problems in my neighborhood. Several of my neighbors came to meetings with pictures, comments etc about flooding and wanted to know what was being done. As it turned out, they did nothing. They came up with a New Orleans style plan that would have cost a fortune. The residents said no, that’s not what they wanted. There were simpler, more cost effective plans presented to the board, but they shoved this one at us as a take it or leave it saying, they had to do it right. Sound familiar? Not having the meetings on TV may cost us something, but having floodwaters going into your house or New Orleans style pumping stations as the alternative costs you in the wallet.
This board doesn’t pass the stew test. If I cook a stew and my first bite is into a piece of rotten meat, I don’t keep eating hoping the next bites will be okay. I throw out the whole stew. It has been proven the village does not shoot straight with the residents of Pleasant Prairie. I cannot trust they handled our water problems fairly or effectively. They lied about something as insignificant as videotaping the board meetings. This isn’t just about the video. Orwellian is the perfect word to describe this board.
Oh, you're so oppressed, you'd think you were Obama's preacher. You're shocked -- SHOCKED -- that the village board (and the departments) would chose to spend money in a way that's different from what you think is right. And you're not just shocked -- you're INDIGNANT that the Board would not agree with you...you, the only reasonable one.
Gosh, it must be hard to breath up there in the thin air on Olympus.
Now wait a minute. Let’s look at this with a little perspective. Let’s remember that for the last several years the Village leadership has informed us of that our police department is severely understaffed. Well if we are operating efficiently with this legislative decision to run with a police personnel shortage, then they should at a minimum provide any equipment needed.
So it is again about priorities, park lights or a properly equipped police department. Then, video replay of the board meetings or park lights. Hmmm, what does everyone think? Common sense and good judgment, too bad it’s missing on our village board.
Here’s an idea. Hot Head for Village President. Well even this would require tuff financial decisions, because Hot Head would immediately fire Michael Pollocoff.
"Hot Head would immediately fire Mike Pollocoff". That would then kick in his severance package, which would cost the Village his severance pay.
Way to go, Hot Head, you're already raising taxes. Let's see how your bid for Village Board works out as you run on a "I guarantee to raise your taxes" platform.
Way to go Anonymous. You accidentally stumbled onto the point I was making. There are tuff financial decisions to be made.
As far as firing Mr. Pollocoff, what a disaster that would be. Here is a man that works 90 hour weeks. How do you replace that? How do you search for a replacement that can lie to the Village Board and the PUBLIC at the drop of a hat?
So my next point is what does someone like him cost the village. As far as his severance package, I think that would be money well spent.
Thanks for the campaign advice. I guess it’s better to say while running “I will not raise your taxes” and then after the election raise fees. We all know that technically that don’t count.
How many more lawsuits will be filled against the village before Lemmings like Anonymous see the big picture? Just wait for the court action for violations of the Great Lake Water Charter. Visit this link.
http://wcca.wicourts.gov/pager.do;jsessionid=331E2AE3A95AE5FAA2B70B469065CA9D.render5?cacheId=338B44011A379A182E8E2B8914576239&offset=0&sortColumn=0&sortDirection=DESC
Suggested reading, Peter Annin, The Great Lakes Water Wars
.Re-elect Rocky and BULLwinkle!
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