Submitted by a NorthIowaToday.com reader:
The Chamber of Commerce and the North IA Band Festival are, as registered non-profits, effectively financed by those of us who actually PAY taxes. As such, these tacitly publicly-subsidized entities should NOT be playing favorites, and – for all practical purposes – be promoting the election campaign of ANY candidate for public office.
Worse yet, this honor smacks of a political “payback” of the lowest order, insofar as Eric Bookmeyer just having been appt’d by Governor Terry Branstad to the Vision Iowa Board. In the Governor’s world, one hand washes the other, even if it’s not his own. That much has been made clear in recent days and weeks.
However, my problem isn’t with Governor Branstad; it’s the cynical manner in which he’s being used as a political pawn – along with the NIFB Board – by Mayor Bookmeyer, Robin Anderson, and the MC Chamber of Commerce.
Now, I would take this same position if a Democrat was Governor, running this year for re-election, and had had this honor bestowed on him, or her. Citizens of North Iowa should be outraged at this egregiously cynical, opportunistic misuse of our band festival. It has been close to 50 years since a governor seeking re-election was made Grand Marshall.
Last Fall, Mason Cityans saw how the Globe-Gazette, in an unprecedented move, abruptly suspended, and then cancelled outright, the “public forums” that the newspaper has traditionally sponsored during the final 60-day run-up to Election Day. Interestingly, this action was taken just after the Bookmeyer campaign Committee had purchased ad space in both the print and online editions of that newspaper.
NO Mayoral OR City Council candidate had/has EVER spent so much money on ads in the Globe-Gazette for a single campaign, and the situation with the incumbent Governor, running for re-election this Fall, having this honor bestowed by the ‘Powers that Be’ is in the same, stinky vein.
We have enough corruption in this state, and evidently it is now here in River City with all this low-handed trickery.
We get to put a career politician, whose own son killed another while drunk driving, in a convertible and treat him like royalty. The same person who won’t even allow a terminal cancer patient to get relief through herb. It’s just insane.
You are either Joel Arthur or Iowa SUCKS under another name. It doesn’t matter. Idiot’s are always IDIOT’s.
That’s funny, I thought I was philosophus.
It’s funny, all you FOX news groupies constantly regurgitate GOP talking points, calling everything you don’t like liberal and then when a Republican Governor is selected you don’t like that either.
It seems most of you don’t know what you believe and just like to spout off.
The only way the chamber will take notice of the peoples displeasure is if they stay away from the parade and stop doing business with chamber members. If we don’t we can expect more of the same the chamber leading our elected officials around by the short hairs.
Man this these clowns are dirty. I think I need 4-5 Moscow Mules and maybe 9-10 cig’s just to stomach all this. I’ll be in my mancave trying to cope.
I wen to Alty n we din’t have ne band but i tried to learn the sax
You should have tried to learn the King’s English instead.
plz stop commntin az ur gibig mE a Hedak
I can’t disagree with this article at all. Very well said and very true.
Can we please just do away with band festival? Its long past its prime and very few people (bands, fans) care to show up anymore. Let the dead horse die!
@sad but true-It is dying because they have allowed it to deteriorate over a period of years. It just has not been the same since they destroyed and blocked off Federal Ave and changed the route.
It hasn’t been the same since the agrarian way of life and big families ended.
The schools have all consolidated. The size of communities dwindle. Band is an expense that many schools don’t support as once was common.
The information age allows for plenty of entertainment choices without leaving home to stand at a curb to cheer on your community.
I think we need to do more to promote a sense of community again. Choosing divisive grand marshalls isn’t a grand idea.