Well, this week’s council meeting was covered by the Shawnee Dispatch in two areas. One area was the story of the meeting and the other area was an editorial.
These can be viewed at:
The article: http://www.shawneedispatch.com/news/2008/jul/30/dinner_guests_answer_elusive/
The editorial:
http://www.shawneedispatch.com/news/2008/jul/29/editorial_unwanted_leftovers/
What a mess. What we have is a situation where two members of the city council, over a period of three council meetings cannot get their stories correct as to what happened.
What they don’t realize (or don’t want to realize) is that it is not necessarily the money, but it’s the constant giving forth of misinformation. It is also their cavalier attitude. .
This can be evidenced by Pflumm’s comment that the whole thing was “no big deal”. No big deal when between him and Straub we can’t get straight answers as to how many people were there? No big deal when between him and Straub we can’t get straight answers as to the names of these people? No big deal when between the two of them we can’t get straight answers about alcohol being served?
Let’s look at it from another perspective. The big, “what if?”. What if a department head had gone to a meeting of their professional organization? And what if that department head had submitted an expense report with questionable information? And then, what if the city manager questioned that department head, and got multiple misleading answers?
What would happen? The department head would be subject to severe disciplinary action to include dismissal. And, based on previous performance at city council, these two would be screaming for that department head’s head…………on a platter.
Now, let’s look at something else. At the first meeting that this came up Straub indicated that the legislative staffers would remember Shawnee down the road. Would they? Gee, why should they when the two council members can’t even remember which staffers were there? And, the total number (4 or 5) can be counted on one hand. Also, let’s talk about follow-up. If these staffers were taken to dinner to possibly be able to help Shawnee in the future how can these council members perform follow up? What’s follow up? That’s contacting these staffers 3, 6, 9, 12 months down the road to see what is happening that could be beneficial to Shawnee? If you don’t know who they were, how can you follow up? Is that “due diligence”? I am sure, based on their non-government work background these gentlemen are familiar with “follow up”.
And last but not least: indicating the name of a US Senator’s staffer, that was not there just because one had their business card. Read the confirmation statement on these expense reports. Was that confirmation statement adhered to?
But then, Pflumm says “it’s no big deal”.
City council members need to be held to a higher standard, and I don’t think these two have been open enough on this situation. Again, misinformation on top of misinformation on top of misinformation.
Maybe the next time someone presents something to the council and Pflumm says “show me” maybe that person should give Pflumm his own response back of “because I said so”.
We can’t forget Straub’s accusation that this was a witch hunt. Witch hunt? You open the door when you Texas Two Step around the truth.
Anybody in wards 1 or 3 want to check out KSA 25-4301?
