COUNCIL MEMBERS BLACKWELL, HENDERSON, WELCH, AND WOOLDRIDGE JUST SAY NO TO VOTERS IN PRP

I am thoroughly disgusted at the blatant idiocy of this Council and the above mentioned members. Why? Because I am sick of their charade of trying to act like they are anything but Abramson puppets. You can read throughout this blog about Henderson, Blackwell, and Welch.

The one surprise was the 2 year old child like mentality of Mary Wooldridge. The others were no surprise at all. I actually supported Wooldridge in prior races and now will work diligently against her in her next.

She chose to make a big scene wanting to hear the robocalls by Doug Hawkins and screaming about ethics, which incidentally is not the role of this committee and she knew that, instead of addressing the real issue at hand which is simply why did the Mayor take the step of ignoring the PRP voters and Board of Trustees.

Here is the background info on the PRP fire department shenanigans that began all of this:

According to KRS statutes the Fire Department will hold their election on the 4th Saturday in June for any vacant Board of Trustee seats and this year we had one. The election was held and the Board of Trustees opted NOT to certify the election due to "electioneering" during the vote.

The election was conducted between 11 AM and 2PM. At approximately 12:30 Abramson Board of Trustee appointee Bill Hibdon made a phone call to candidate Mike Ford and told hm he needed to hurry up and get his people down here because he was losing.

The link in this fiasco? The ones involved were with the old South Dixie Fire Department and Henderson supporters. They were merged with PRP. Think what we see in politics is bad? You should check out the internal politics in this situation. But that is another story on another day.

Hibdon did this inside the voting place. Electioneering and totally illegal in any instance you would want to compare it to.

At this point the Mayor had the obligation to appoint someone to fill the vacancy for the term. No one argues that point. He chose not to. Since Abramson did not appoint anyone we still had a vacancy.

The PRP Board of Trustees decided in the best interest of the voter and community to rectify this situation they would hold a special or second election. This election was held on September 19 a full 3 MONTHS after the first.Trying to be above board and transparent they advertised it as they would the first by law and proceeded to have this election.

Kudos to the Board for trying to make this right but then this too became a problem apparently.

Since Abramson DID NOT do his job after the first election the Board carried the second and after the results were known certified this election and made the recommendation to appoint Mike Priddy, Sr to the Board based on these results.

Seems simple enough doesn't it?

Not in the Abramson regime it isn't. Abramson refused the recommendation citing his authority under KRS 75 as being able to appoint the Board member at his discretion thus telling those who voted in PRP to essentially screw themselves.

Blackwell decided to muddy the waters even further by complaining about so called lies from Hawkins in an email blast and saying this second election was not anything but a straw vote. A pathetic argument at best if you were there. Henderson couldn't do anything but keep whispering to Blackwell and holding up papers seemingly to say "look at me, look at me." Truly a work of art if one were in preschool.

Of course neither are assigned to the committee or have a vote on the committee.

Their problem? Doug Hawkins sent out robocalls asking people to vote for Mike Priddy for the job.

Folks like the calls or hate them Hawkins was well within his rights to campaign for anyone of his choosing. The Metro Council did not like the message that admittedly included language that stated that IF Priddy did not get elected the Mayor would take away funding and trucks and send them anywhere he wanted outside of PRP.

Vickie Welch decided to abuse her Chair position and make a scene trashing Hawkins over his robocalls because " he has even attacked us" using them.

Anything to do with the content or their duties as committee members? Nope just idiotic children posturing and whining for the cameras.

Folks that is called campaigning.

We see it in every election at every level and the fear message is used quite often. Think of every TV ad, radio ad, print ad you have seen by candidates and ask yourself if this is any different. And before anyone says well Hawkins was not the candidate think about how many PAC's run these type ads for candidates.

No difference.

Don't like the message Hawkins put out? Sorry first amendment protection. He was well within his rights. Hell I don't even like robocalls though admittedly I used one during my last race.

But I digress. The fact is this.

The Mayor CHOSE to ignore the will of the voter in PRP (yes only 130 showed up out of 90,000) to appoint a political crony named Rosemary Mattingly wife of Larry Mattingly Legislative Aide of unethical Bob Henderson.

Instead of focusing on the issues presented here of what was right for the citizens of PRP the child Chairwoman Vicki Welch, and her preschool buddy counterparts Wooldridge, Blackwell, and Henderson decided to go on a personal attack about the robocalls and whine about how they were not right and how mean and bad Hawkins was opting to IGNORE the will of the PRP voters.

That is and always has been the problem of government with Abramson in charge. The cronies will dilute the real issues in favor of doing his will. And this is one reason why I got involved in politics in the first place.

The will of the people must not be ignored. Anyone who argues because the turnout for the vote was so low also ignores the reality of the situation. When was the last time we had a majority turnout for any local elections including these Council members like Blackwell and Henderson who like to smirk about the turnout?

They got their jobs with a less than majority voter turnout so why is it different for them in this case? There is none.

Abramson has hidden behind the KRS 75 statute so he can gain. Why would I say that? Because the statutes allow the Board of Trustees to essentially do what they want. Abramson could have done this appointment after the June election and did not. Now that he does not like the turnout he wants it his way. The trustees can take a vote tomorrow to turn over the whole Department to the City of Louisville and Abramson then gets control of the money and resources.

Abramson appointees now control 4 out of 7 Board seats a clear majority. KRS 75 clearly did not want that situation which is why it only allowed the Mayor 3 appointments in the first place. As evidenced by this Council committee they will apparently do his bidding as well.

Since he now controls the Board does anyone think that is not a possibility that he wants to control the monies in the volunteer districts? What if every volunteer fire district had a Mayor appointed Board member make a phone call and do some "electioneering" during a Board election in other volunteer districts? Abramson would then be able to gain control of their Boards as well.

Hmm, maybe Hawkins robocall wasn't so far off base after all.

Your thoughts?