Disappointment Part-Two 11/11/09 Newspaper

This is the entire letter to the editor, not just the short version that was in "The Bourbon County Citizen " 11/11/2009.



Paris Resident Disappointment "Part-Two" With City Officials Actions

I want to tell you that it troubles me even more to be writing another letter to the editor about our city officials. I’ll refer to this letter as Disappointment Part-Two and hope there doesn’t have to be a Part-Three. The time frame of Part-Two starts were my first letter ends from August 19th

Dear Editor and Citizens of Paris

I want to share some more of my experience with "city officials." After attending all these commissioners meetings and seeing how city business is conducted as it relates to the public information side, I didn’t like what was going on. Very little information about city business is getting to the public.
I decided we the tax paying public deserved more information passed on from city officials, so I have been voicing my concerns at the commissioner meetings on several different issues. They want to call me "out of order" when they don’t want to answer my questions.

On Thursday August 20th -Just across the street from my house, there was a man on a golf cart that used a weed eater to cut down the 4 ft. high weeds just around the fire hydrants, nothing else. The rest of the 4ft tall weeds were left standing. This was after my letter to the editor was published in the newspaper on August 19th saying the weeds were back and you could barely see the fire hydrants.

On Friday August 21st - I went to the city office to obtain a copy of the letter asking the city to consider Sunday Alcohol Sales and a copy of the proposed Sunday ordinance. Cheryl Dryden the city clerk gave me copies of each. I am against Sunday Alcohol Sales and decided to take action against it. I ask for the copies in order to research this matter. I was concerned that it would pass at the next meeting if the word didn’t get spread to other concerned citizens that were against Sunday Alcohol sales.
"little bit of humor"The city manager was there while Mrs. Dryden was getting copies for me. I jokingly told him that the weeds around the fire hydrants had finally been cut, he replied yes I know. This is just another example of city officials ignoring the city weed ordinance that I had been asking them to enforce for the last 2 ½ months.

On Tuesday August 25th - I attended the city commissioners meeting to speak out against Sunday Alcohol Sales. I was delighted to see all the other citizens of Paris that came to the meeting to speak out against Sunday Alcohol Sales. I researched the matter and had prepared a written statement along with some questions about the City of Paris-Chapter: 62 Alcoholic Beverages Ordinance.
Everyone that signed up on the sheet for public comments was allowed to speak at the meeting.
I had signed my name first on the sheet and was the first one to speak when the city officials allowed public comment.{ Note-I gave a copy of my prepared speech to city officials} I gave my speech, ask my questions but never got answers to all of them. The questions were very specific about Chapter 62: City of Paris Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance. The answers that I did get were troubling to me because they were different than what the ordinance said. I was also told by the mayor that they probably couldn’t answer my questions.
Thanks to a lot of other good citizens comments the city officials voted no and the ordinance failed. I guess at that point I should have just let it go, but let me explain to you why I didn’t. It seemed to me our city officials just added a paragraph in the ordinance to allow
Sunday Alcohol Sales without reading the rest.
I told you that I had researched Chapter: 62 Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance and if they had even read their own ordinance, I see no reason they couldn’t answer my questions. City officials are writing changes to an ordinance that effects all citizens of Paris, Shouldn’t they understand it first, before they impose it on all of us?
Here are the questions that I asked
The statement below is from the ordinance:
Whereas: Economic concerns cause the city to authorize Sunday Alcohol Sales
Question #1 -WHAT CONCERNS ? EXPLAIN? No answer to this question

Some general questions about: Chapter 62: Alcoholic Beverages Ordinance
Question #2 -section 62.003 - Who is the alcoholic beverage control administrator? And 2 deputies ? I was told Jimmy Jones was the ABC administrator and the chief of police named one deputy. The answer seemed ok, but the city ordinance clearly states that the city manager appoints the ABC administrator and that the two deputies would be Paris Police officers. I find it strange and disturbing that city officials told me they don’t have anything to do with the ABC Administrator and deputies in this meeting? It is plainly stated that they do in their ordinance.
Here it is:
62.003 CITY ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL ADMINISTRATOR; DEPUTIES
(A) There is hereby created the office of the City Alcoholic Beverage Control Administrator (hereinafter in this chapter referred to as the administrator), who shall have the duties and functions prescribed by KRS Chapter 241. The administrator may or may not be an officer or employee of the city, and shall be appointed by the City Manager. He shall also have such further duties and functions as are prescribed by this chapter.

(B) There are hereby authorized two (2) Deputy City ABC Administrators for Enforcement, who shall be ABC qualified city Police Officers, appointed by municipal order with the approval of the city ABC Administrator. The duties of such deputies shall be as determined by the city ABC Administrator, and are in addition to Police Officer duties of the city, but shall primarily consist of enforcement of state and city laws, ordinances, and regulations in the area of alcoholic beverage control.

Question #3- section 62.005 - How often if ever are the books, records of alcohol sales looked at? No answer to this question

Question #4 section 62.105 - How do they prove to the city that 50% or more of their gross annual income from the dining facilities comes from the sale of food and not alcohol?
No answer to this question

On Thursday August 27th - I decided to call State ABC office and ask them if the City of Paris ABC administrator reported to the state. I spoke to a lady who identified herself as Lisa Moorman. Her title was General Council Lawyer for the state ABC.
She was very nice and listen patiently as I explained the nature of my call. After looking up several things on her computer as we were talking. She did identify Jimmy Jones as the city of Paris ABC person. She said at that time she didn’t believe the state ABC was Mr. Jones boss. She said more time would be needed to verify it 100%. I said for now that was enough. I thanked her for listening to me and we hung up.
Her answer just left me still thinking this is strange that neither state or city officials could answer my question. Does it not stand to reason our city officials voting on an ordinance of Sunday Alcohol Sales would know what the language in the whole ordinance says? So I ask you, is it not a legitimate question that needs answered?

On Monday August 31st - I went to the city office around 11:30 a.m. and was able to have a meeting with the city manager Mr. Naghy. I spoke briefly about the unanswered questions but mainly on the original subject that started all of this, weed/grass ordinance and getting the vacant lots mowed next to my home. He told me he was reluctant to try to enforce the weed ordinance because of his past experiences in other places. He then said he was going against his gut feeling and do it anyway. He said he would call me in a couple days because he needed to get an estimate from his supervisor what it might cost to have city employees mow the properties and then bill the owners. He didn’t call like he said he would, but later he shared a cost estimate that his supervisor provided.
The estimate he showed me wasn’t just for the vacant lots near my home which are about 3 acres total. The estimate was for about 42 acres which covered other properties on my street. I have misplaced the copy he gave me, but the cost I think was around $1,900 dollars. I told him I did not expect tax money to be spent on private property upkeep. They needed to make land owners obey the weed/grass ordinance. Mr Naghy again had city workers mowing and weed eating the extremely tall weeds and grass from around road curbs and fire hydrants.

On Wednesday Sept 2nd - I was out around my house taking more pictures of the tall weeds and grass. At about 7:45 a.m. a red pick-up truck stopped in front of my house while I was taking pictures. It was Mr. Naghy, he spoke and told me he was just looking to see if any mowing had been done. He really never told me if he had spoken to the property owners. The property owner that same day used a tractor and bushhog to mow the vacant lots down to about 1 ft height. The weeds were so tall that on a vacant lot the bushhog actually ran over and destroyed a telephone box. The telephone boxes are about 3 ft tall but the weeds still had it covered. Several A.T.& T. phone customers didn’t have service until about 7 p.m. that evening when the phone service man finally got the box replaced.

On Tuesday Sept 8th - I attended the city commissioners meeting. I told them I had spent the whole summer fighting weed problems surrounding my house. I ask about the answers to my question on the ABC administrator. Needless to say, they skated around the questions again just saying they appointed him but didn’t control him. I asked then who is his boss?
At this meeting they announced a first reading of an ordinance moving the time of commissioner meeting from 6 p.m. to an early start time of 9 a.m. I questioned why the change of time because most people are working that time of day and wouldn’t be able to attend. Their answer was that it would be a cost savings to the city. When I asked how much savings it would be, Mr Naghy replied he would present the savings at the next meeting. My thoughts on changing the time is it’s just another way our city officials can minimize public comment.

On Tuesday Sept 22nd - I attended the city commissioners meeting. They voted and passed the ordinance to change the meeting to 9 a.m.
I asked again about the cost savings. Mr. Naghy had promised showing how much money it was going to save the city. I was told there would be a coming press release about it. Again broken promises, shut the public out.
At this same meeting I presented a letter to city officials about their website that I had been working on for awhile. Believe it or not The City of Paris has a website. http://www.paris.ky.gov/
It has useful information on it now, but other local government websites shares a lot more information to their citizens than does Paris.
My thought is that this would be a great communication tool for city officials to allow all citizens access to information about what is going on in their local government. I told them this would be a great way for them to show transparency in our local government by posting information online. I offered several suggestion in my letter of items to be added to the website. I Encouraged them to review their website and they too might realize other items to share with the public. I asked that they formally accept a copy of my letter and act upon it’s content. They did formally accept my letter.

On Tuesday Oct 6th - At around 1:45 p.m. I went to Mr Naghy’s office and ask to see him. Mr Naghy agreed to meet with me. I pressed him for answers on the weed ordinance and ABC questions. He ask me what I wanted him to do?? "HELLO"- enforce the weed/grass ordinance and answer the questions about the ABC administrator I asked 7 weeks ago.
He indicated to me that he was going to get the Chief of Police that day to issue citations to the property owners for weed/grass violation. Did they really issue citations-your guess is as good as mine?
I ask him again was the ABC administrator a city employee? He said he didn’t know!

On Monday Oct 12th - I received a phone call from Mr Naghy’s secretary inviting me to a meeting with Mr. Naghy and the ABC administrator. I told her all I wanted was for city officials to answer my original questions. I didn’t see a need for me to attend a private meeting between the two of them.

On Tuesday Oct 13th - This was the city commissioners first 9 a.m. meeting. Because my wife was very sick, actually she spent several days in the hospital, I was unable to attend this meeting.
‘Little bit of humor again"I would like to have been a mouse in the corner to see the smiles on their face when they realized I was not at the meeting. Aaah- finally got rid of that public nuisance!

On Wednesday Oct 21st "In Bourbon County Citizen paper" Finally the big savings for moving the commissioners meeting to the 9 a.m. start time is announced. I won’t get into the details, but if you read the article it wasn’t very convincing to say the least.

On Tuesday Oct 27th - 9 a.m. City commissioners meeting. - I was late getting to the meeting and arrived 9:07 a.m. I wanted to ask if they had taken any action on my letter concerning updating their website. I sat through the rest of the meeting thinking they would allow me to speak at some point in time. Wrong, they decided to go into executive session. I raised my hand and ask to speak and was told,” we are now in executive session” by the mayor. I replied that they were doing everything they could to minimize public comment. The mayor replied “thank you for your comment and turned away”.- To me that meant all public nuisance-get out this is private City of Paris affairs

To say the least, it is a shame that our city officials seem to forget that the tax payers who voted them into office is their boss. They make it seem like the old days, good ole boy politics-"It is none of the public’s business what we do" Speaking of good ole boy politics- Follow the logic in this example.
After my good friend and Mayor, Don Kiser Passed.
The 4 city commissioners were left with the task of naming a new mayor within 30 days. This is my understanding of how the process occurred.

Mike Thornton was mayor pro-tem because he received the most votes in the commissioners race. The commissioners decided Mr. Thornton should be the new mayor. Logical step I agree.

Next they needed to make a new mayor pro-tem. Stan Galbraith received the second highest vote. The commissioners decide he should be the new mayor pro-tem. Logical step I agree.

Next step is were they threw logic out the door and "good ole boy politics" took over.
They needed to appoint one new commissioner. The logical thing to do would have been this.

There was a total of 8 people in the general election that ran for the office of city commissioners of which only 4 could be elected.
Obviously the 4 other people who lost were interested in serving in public office because their names were on the ballot when you the public voted. Each of these 4 candidates on the ballot had good support because they got a lot of votes, just not enough to finish in the top 4. The logical next step would have been offer the vacant commissioners seat to the next highest vote getter in the election. Meaning the 4 that ran on the ballot of the general election. Number 5,6,7,8 in that order. I sincerely believe one of the four would have accepted their offer.

Instead they use the good ole boy system and seated a new commissioner who’s name was no where to be found on the general election ballot.
You the public voters never cast the first vote for him. How is that for following the logical solution?

The message in this for all of you, is get involved more in your city government. Don’t just set back and be part of the silent majority. You can make a difference if you speak up. These city officials have the power to effect your day to day life in a very serious way with the actions they may take or may not take. Go to these meetings and demand more information about your local government. I have attended a lot of the city commissioners meeting and there is a surprising low total of the general public attending the meetings. They are supposed to be working for you. These people are making laws that you must obey. They are spending your hard earned tax dollars. They are molding the future of the city you call home. There is suppose to be transparency in government meaning easy access for the public to view everything without a bunch of red tape.
All I really wanted was for them to enforce the city weed/grass ordinance and it has turned into this.

Sincerely,
John Marshall