(Op-ed by Peter J. children)
If you, like I, watch the council meeting every time it’s in session, you can’t help but notice certain nuances. The one that comes to mind first is how closely the mayor watches Weaver. He keeps a very close rein on him…he’s quick to chastise Weaver for the slightest infraction and is relentless in his insistence that Weaver “comes to order” whenever the mayor commands.
During the council meeting of June 21st, when Travis Hickey leveled charges against Weaver and Jeff Marsters called for a “point of order” the mayor ignored it. It is my opinion that the action by councilman Hickey was contrived prior to the meeting taking place. It is also my opinion that this scenario was orchestrated by the beer drinker and one of his prize puppets solely to set Weaver up.
It’s plain as the nose on your face just where Solberg and Turncoat fit in. These are people easily seduced by someone who arrived in this city because his wife was hired by the local hospital; he was a former recruiter I am told from Clinton, Iowa who either could not find employment here….or decided he’d rather just focus on beer. He quickly put together a campaign chest with $10,000.00 in it to run against a decent man with no money and even less charisma…the results turned this city into a political circus and at times a living hell.
I personally voted for the guy who lost because I know him, I knew what he was like and his only agenda was what was good for this city. He did not want to close the Human Rights department, he did not want to shut off the public address system and from what little I have, I would have bet that he would not have coerced the council to follow blindly into schemes to payoff political favors. This mayor badly misjudged those living here as people who only slop hogs and feed chickens; big mistake.
I study the blogs on this site, they seem to be about 60/40 against the beer drinker and his puppets. The majority seems to be able to see through the smoke and mirrors. The most disappointing aspect of this mayor is the transparency of it all. I’d have more respect if in his quest to become a supreme dictator there was an actual purpose in mind. If he were to reach his own personal nirvana….what then? Does he want to sell off the local golf course, maybe the municipal swimming pool, what, what’s it all about? Do any of you know? Well I know and it’s pure folly.
His first objective was to close the Human Rights office to appease his benefactor at I.C. Systems; close but no cigar. That fiasco caught Scott (I bring Jesus with me to the table) Turncoat. I keep bringing it up because I don’t want you to ever forget what a real hypocrite looks like, but by now I think most of you are on to him. Be assured that Turncoat is not alone in that category at that table. The next thing he did was to shut off the public platform….just what the hell was that all about? He wanted your vote but he didn’t want to hear what you had to say about the city you live in. Smart, you think? A real rocket scientist Can you think of another mayor who did any of this?
It was said that this mayor used Face book a lot in his bid for office. It was rumored that he had close to 3,000 “friends” on this site that cast their votes for him….but it was also reported that as soon as the election was over he virtually stopped bloging on the site. Got what he wanted and moved on. Its my opinion that Weaver’s people are not so much computer people, I don’t think they frequent social websites, rather they communicate more by phone or over coffee, the old fashion way
His real objective was to disarm Max Weaver, and he just doesn’t have the timber to get the job done. Weaver is an anomaly; he was the catalyst in the finalization of the shed that was damaged by the city. It was Weaver who was persistent in the final settlement and it was Weaver who voted to raise the settlement from a suggested price of $500.00 to $1,000.00. He fought to get the claimant as much as possible while the councilperson who represented that ward (Hickey) sat mute. These situations are repeated throughout the year. Max’s hair is too long his attire is not always coordinated and more often than not his mouth is running before his brain can catch up to it…but it seems the common man, and women love him. He has become an icon to the working segment of the city, these are people who easily identify with him, and more importantly, feel comfortable in his presence. This city is divided into four wards but the demographics of our population are not as simply arranged, rather here as in every city and town they are more defined by social stratus…and without a shadow of a doubt, it seems Max’s slice of that pie is by far the largest on the plate.
So what does this tell us? It says in the end its not where you eat lunch, or how many billboards or yard signs you put up, its not about how many ads are running on television….no its really about the size of your slice of the pie. Know in advance there will be a major push, a strong concentrated effort to unseat Weaver, but the one thing that doesn’t cost a dime in any election, is the vote itself. The poor and downtrodden can step into the booth as well as the affluent, and now soon we will see if they do.
Peter J. Children
Addendum
Because this opinion was partly written after the Sunday’s Globe came out, and not yet posted to North Iowa Today, it allows me to offer comment on what the esteemed senior writer of the local paper, Mr John Skipper’s take was on that fateful night of June 21st when right met wrong at the council table in the Mason City Room. First things first; 1) If councilperson Hickey, in whose ward the infamous shed was located, had done his job more efficiently, the matter would have never reached to level it had. It would have long been history. 2) the mayor, who has demonstrated many times in the past his zeal for order, had not ignored Marsters’s call for order, the matter would not have escalated to the point it did. I believe that the beer drinker wanted it to escalade. What people seem to quickly forget is that there is a filmed record of these events, if you don’t believe me, ask Turncoat, and if they are studied, you will find the facts do not match up to what the senior writer at the Globe reports. 3) It was councilman Hickey who approached Weaver and got in Weaver’s face, not the other way around…as evidenced by the fact that the police escorted Hickey away from Weaver…which was not was what the writer at the Globe has portrayed. The aggressor was removed from the area, look at the tape. This is why horse races are filmed, because the tape does not lie.
In previous articles I stated there is no love lost between Weaver & Skipper. Weaver has been well aware that if you step into the public arena, you better be able to handle criticism…if you can’t, well then you’re in the wrong spot. I like John Skipper, I have known him for many years, but I feel his dislike for Weaver has clouded his thought process and influenced his reasoning regarding City Hall. It is what it is; whether you like it or not ….and even analyses from the likes of the esteemed writer John Skipper cannot make it something its not. This administration is rotten from the top…and we all know who’s at the top.
P.J.C.
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