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Bookmeyer slowly killing Human Rights in Mason City

Editorial by Matt Marquardt –

There are many ways to die.

You can die quickly, as in a beheading; you can die a little more slowly by starving yourself; or you can get cancer and die over the course of weeks and months, very painfully, sometimes publicly showing the ravages of the disease that is slowly eating away at you.

Mayor Eric Bookmeyer has tried to murder Human Rights in Mason City using all three of these techniques.

Be aware, Bookmeyer uses deception and lies in his cause. He will make the feel-good public statements in support of the HR Commission and Department. Even as he lies to our faces, he has others doing his dirty work. He uses others to accomplish this goal; he knows having his name attached to the demise of Human Rights could stain what he thinks is a burgeoning political career.

Yes, Bookmeyer is the puppeteer here in River City. When he has it out for you, he comes to you with smiles and handshakes, singing your praises even as he pulls the strings of his cronies to accomplish your destruction.  That’s how he works.  He wants nothing on the record about himself of anything of substance.  Some might call this the work of a coward.  Bookmeyer is unaware that the vast majority of folks here in town know how he operates and have absolutely no trust in him.  The one-percenters he surrounds himself with and confides in continue to encourage his vendettas, slapping him on the back and telling him what a great job he is doing. He cares most about what the man next to him on the green thinks, not what the man next to him in the grocery store check out line thinks.

Bookmeyer took office in 2010 and immediately went for the jugular of Human Rights; some say as a payback for help getting elected.  In council work shops that year, he first would start by saying how important Human Rights are in Mason City. Then, he produced what could only be hours and hours of homework he did on its caseloads and decisions, acting surprised that people had complaints and that they were all investigated. On cue, his lackey Scott Tornquist next put it right out on the table that shutting down Human Rights in Mason City would save thousands of dollars.  Bookmeyer encouraged discussion on the matter. Thinking they had the council votes to get it done, Bookmeyer and Tornquist pushed forward until Max Weaver exposed their plan. Human Rights was saved for the time being (see videos, below).

Despite this setback, Bookmeyer never gave up on his quest to kill Human Rights. Once the people of Mason City awarded him a second lock-step lackey in Jean Marinos and two other wishy-washy councilmen, he had the votes to kill Human Rights outright, but the four yes-voters knew it would be political suicide to go forward publicly and just shut it down.  Instead, they have employed two much more subtle tactics.

The first tactic is adding Human Rights, along with other departments and services, to a “cut list” $600,000 deep.  This way, it is not singled out, but still set for slaughter.  Bookmeyer had his council talk about diminishing the scope of the commission as well, inquiring about eliminating its two most important functions: Housing complaints and employment complaints.  If the department and the commission are starved of funds – and cases – it is neutralized, ineffective and will die.

Even as these lethal plans are set in motion, Bookmeyer has been working for three years to infest Human Rights with the cancer of his own appointments.  This is a long-term, painful demise for Human Rights that Bookmeyer has orchestrated.  As Sandra Servantez attempted to point out Tuesday night before Bookmeyer and his bully Tornquist rudely intervened, the commission is now in “chaos” due to these appointments.  This chaos is now publicly rearing its head for all to see.

The talk is that those Bookmeyer is appointing do not believe in Human Rights and are there to slow down and grind to a halt the work the commission has accomplished for decades.  It does not take a genius to understand that any board or commission that does not believe in its duties, nor have a care for the people that have come to it for help – appointees who, in fact, may be more sympathetic to the alleged rights violators – can destroy the commission from the inside.  To push through his appointments, Bookmeyer has employed dirty tricks like taking his appointments to the Globe Gazette ahead of presenting them to the commission itself for approval.  Bookmeyer has a very small gene pool to choose from with these appointments; they are almost always associates of his campaign or members of his so-called elite circle of supporters.

The end game may very well be the funeral of Human Rights in Mason City sometime in 2013.  The commission is now stocked with Bookmeyer appointees.  The department will be on the list of cuts the council is compiling.  Long-time Human Rights champion Lionel Foster is nearing retirement.  There will be little chance of saving this bastion of help for the downtrodden and wronged.

The grim reaper is at the doorstep; the scythe is sharpened.  Only the people of Mason City can chase him away.  Do they care enough to speak up?

—————-

Bookmeyer produces binders full of research on Human Rights cases in Mason City before Scott Tornquist suggests cuts:

httpv://youtu.be/mBkTw1AdeVY

Bookmeyer blames Max Weaver for being the “genesis” of up to $50,000 in budget cuts to Human Rights; Max Weaver confronts him:

httpv://youtu.be/a3BLurtSSG8

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