Caution: Dangerous Information Posted
I promise not to go on about the outrage that has been visited upon me by one of the local press outlets because I dared bring to a open City Council meeting the idea that the Council owed it to our residents to discuss the possibility of transferring a higher percentage of profits from the Harbor Department to the City for use in paying for some of the public safety and environmental impact of the port on the City…
But I will let you know that I have received nothing but supportive calls and emails on what I tried to do.
I can also tell you that I have received some information about what’s behind the 40 lashes I am getting…and while I haven’t seen proof…it makes sense…
I apparently stepped on someone’s toes who has been trying to work out a back door, closed door “gentleman’s agreement” to get more monies transferred from the port and now it is very important that my suggestion to even talk about this idea be trashed so that…gasp… the “right person and persons can get the credit.”
If this is the case, how petty…and why didn’t anyone bother to call me when the agenda item appeared asking me to hold off..which I would have…and have done so on other issues.
I don’t care who gets “credit” for the port profits transfer issue or the car rental tax issue (which I still haven’t seen moved and yet another issue I got slapped upside the head at a council meeting for bringing up)…and I didn’t ask the local press to plaster my photo (and a bad one that it is) or my proposal on the front page…the press chose to do that and then slammed me because it was “front page news.”
Honestly folks, we are in serious trouble as a democracy when ideas and the call for discussion of ideas is so demonized that it chills this discussion.
I am posting the presentation I made on Tuesday which outlines why I think the Council needs to discuss in detail the increased transfer of port profits. Proposal to Increase Transfer of Port Funds
Be careful…it is “controversial.”
