" Frankly with the long history of coreographed votes, being the percieved form of business conducted by this council, I find little refuge that two of them stood up to something like this, it still passed. These people have saddled Mattoon, with 10 Million in bonds, for their various pet projects. Not to mention, the long history of their expenditure priorities. They can not keep up with their current responsibilities even to minimalist standards. They are adding items in categories they are already far behind on doing their jobs in. They are TIF and kicker taxing, any and all possible opportunities to do so. Speculating Taxpayers dollars for the next twenty years, on long shot nags their friends haul to the track.

These leaders have sobbed of what hard times they are facing, to excuse various lapses in judgement, and avoid shouldering responsibly for the jobs they ran for office or accepted positions in. From one side of their mouth, they are flat broke, and in the same breath, out of the other side, they are raising bets, with taxpayer money riding on every questionable investment.

One vote, is far from a track record. Political posturing is just as likely as actually seriously opposing just this one frivolous expense. This is the same bunch, while they had no money to mow grass on recreational city land they now propose to sell off, they voted to spend more than 60k on garage doors and enclosing the Mattoon police shooting range. Firing guns in a metal enclosure, is close to idiocy, but it was a worth while cause for them at the time, even while they bemoaned being skint broke. Sure there was one bid, and it came in more than double, what estimates suggested, but it was more important than any public project, to act on. They dug into the kicker cookie jar, soaked out more than a million dollars and bought farm ground for twice market value, to dig a pond and ditch to try to solve flooding issues with a section of town, that was built in a flood plane.

I am sure they may all trade off turns, being the two dissenters on expense measures, from this vote right up to the election. Every vote, could be 3-2, from now to election day and they still all pass the consequences to the taxpayers. In my opinion even if these were genuine no votes, its far too little, far too late. "

" Since I don't have the ability myself to find out, I would be curious on issues that this government, during their time in charge have passed that spent tax monies on. I would like to see the item, the money involved, and the names voting for and the names voting against. This would either identify the big spenders or show that they use a round robin method for voting so not everyone looks like the bad guy. "

" This would either identify the big spenders or show that they use a round robin method for voting so not everyone looks like the bad guy.

I suspect you might be onto something here, Charlie. "

" The best way, would be to search this papers archives. Possibly mattoon council vote, would hit the heart of it. Set the begin date to where you see fit, and end it curently, or where you lost track.

Just on the extending water and sewer for the proposed meat plant at 1000N and 33rd, I found at least three times they tabled and voted on 50K a pop, over the two years since it was proposed. Now they are running the line there, and across to the new I57 interchange vacinity. There are already 3 industrial developments in the kalkan vacinity, so some of that seems overly expansive and redundant to me.

Reminders of issues like the 10 year sidewalk repair plan, Lake paradise, ponds, mowing, proposed selling, Parks maintenance, street maintenance, leaf collection, industrial compost grinders, leaf vacs, New city employees pension and benefit cuts, Skate parks, TIF area sidewalks, land purchases, proposed city asset sales, boiler slag, oil and rock chip, maintenance failures, pension funding issues, police and fire department cuts, issues, and even more issues, TIF spending, TIF creation, The old Sheraton, murals, increased sales taxes, kicker taxes, and just basic fundamental failures to do the jobs they are tasked with in capacities they sought office or positions in.

One might reasonably expect, when people tasked with responsibly utilizing tax dollars in any capacity, say they don't have the funds to effectively perform basic responsibilities they are chaged with maintaining, some reflection, belt tightening, and conservative spending might soon follow those public admissions. Cuts fell to aspects of civic responsibility as they chose not to fullfill portion after portion of their charged tasks. Spending on speculative measures, and frivolous items, were not quelled in the slightest.

As I recall, many votes went unanimous. No matter how they voted, I see this lot as a collective. They as a group have come to any and all decisions that taxpayers have faced. been in charge of overseeing employees are effectively doing their jobs, and the lawyer and accountant jobs being held by 1 person, leaves checks balances, error correction, acountability, and just outright ethics isses over the whole concept. They have failed to act on internal failures, and presented an inept decision making process, including the long running caucus preproom debate, that may or may not be largely inspired by outside individuals personal influences. Presentation of items, discussions and votes, have long given the apearances of improperly discussed and established coreography taking place. Decisions have been made that yield little gain to taxpayers, individual gains to a few, and the cost is passed to others to sort out at some other time, as they are plausibly even more broke now, than they were. Millions in bonds have been issued, completely for new projects, private business investment, and land speculations. They already can't afford their current responsibilities and are borowing money, and robbing peter to pay paul, to create new responsibilities.

Its all free money, taxpayers are a limitless fund to draw from evidently. Every tax increase, kicker and TIF investment, sits solely on the local tax base to ultimately pay these bills, any interest, and cover any further losses for bets that fail to produce. "

" The best way is to go to a City Council meeting and ask in public. Then they would have to give you and answer.

You would also find out that Mike P is clueless, he has no idea what he is talking about.

Mike P., try getting the facts before you post. I know that would be a novel idea for you. "

" Oddly enough, the two articles pertaining this issue, have several comments, and rapidly found the archives, as soon will this one, I predict.

If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient with them, we shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon "

" You would also find out that Mike P is clueless, he has no idea what he is talking about.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oh really?

You might have a bit more credibility if you were to back that up with some facts of your own, partyline.

Care to tell us which of his comments are wrong?

It sounds like someones toes might be getting stepped on.

I have always said that when people start squealing, you must be onto something.

Keep it up Mike, you have them squealing, and that's a good thing for all concerned.

In closing let me say, I suspect partyline might have a dog in this fight, but I suspect it will be kept hidden from view. lol! "

" It is not hard to figure out who has voted for what. The meeting minutes are posted on the City of Mattoon website from 2004 to present. "

" I will add you will find 99.995% of votes passed unanimous. Of all the meetings I've attended with this council, I have only heard 3 NO votes. Two of them came last Tuesday. "

" I wonder which member of the council Mattoon.Party.Line is, related too, works for or is sleeping with?? "

" Plus we hired an out-of-town firm and artist when we have plenty of local talent that could have at the very least kept those funds circulating within the community. "

" Mike P, whew, you wear me out dude :) Seriously though,you have alot of good posts. I believe the costs of extending the sewer line to the meat plant (which will not be annexed into the city) is closer to 600,000. Pretty nice chunk of change donated by a group who is in financial trouble huh? "

" Mike P is long winded!


"Somebody asked for a soap box for Christmas." "

" Instead of whining about some one's posts being too long, why don't you just skip over them? Problem solved.

Seriously, why do so many folks want to play hall monitor? "

" This is a public opinion comments forum. Some folks only have contributions, to add to these conversations, by commenting on the comments, which is just as much their right. Some folks, wish to keep open public discussion of important issues, to a minimum, or distract from discussions importance and limit further imput.

This paper has largely seen their coverage of local public meetings, as something to be done as a disinterested or unaffected bystander, rather than a civic minded representation. They regurgitate statement after statement, provided as a sole basis for public information. I think every specific issue I raised can be found in the archives, right here. Any speculations of motives, are completely my own. They are derived from various contradictions, questionable actions, and numerous obvious failures. "

" Mattoon.Party.Line, I have been to plenty of Council meetings, both in the 'big room' and the pre-Council meeting in the 'little room' and I'll say this about asking questions of the City Council;

If it a subject they do not want to discus they will say, "We'll check into it" or "We'll have someone get back to you on that." That way they end the discussion and shuffle you off to a dead end. If they check into it or get back to the questioner the answers are never made public. I've even seen them pull the "three-minute rule" to end discussions. Very few items, if any, are open to public discussion before the Council has all ready made up their minds.

Welcome to small City "Good ol' Boy" politics. "