OK, here goes. On Monday, 4/8/24 I addressed the Shawnee City Council regarding the recent trip that the three individuals named above took to Washington, DC for the National League of Cities Conference.
I pointed out, that based on information received from the city's finance department via a KORA request that these three spent very, very, very, little time attending meetings. That based on that information, it appeared that most of the 6 days spent in Washington were used for activities not a part of that conference.
Rather than repeat it all here, you can hear the presentation, and actually see the info on the power point presentation by going to this page on the city's website. Move the timeline control to the 15:40 mark.
Out of over $17,000 spent it would appear that maybe half, if not more, was wasted. I trust that these members of the governing body (and their spouses) enjoyed themselves.
It should also be noted that in that presentation I made mention of an email I had sent them which they refused to answer. That was also posted on this blog at this link. Why didn't they answer it? Was it because they felt they did not have to respond to a citizen inquiry? Or was it because they did not want to tell the truth about apparently wasting a bunch of money?
Sidebar 1: It was brought to my attention that an individual by the name of Alex Welch Blattner posted an item about the presentation on another web site. I read it and I laughed. First she says that after coming back from DC they gave a full presentation at a previous council meeting. A three minute quickie about what they did does not a full presentation make, and they said very little about how they spent the six days. But apparently Ms. Blattner would like to denigrate my conclusions even though I had the info from the city's records, again, via a KORA (Kansas Open Records Act) request. This individual has blinders on and does not want to face facts. As they say in German, Das tut mir leid (sorry about that).
Sidebar 2: Back in January when the item about rejoining the NLC came up, former councilmembers Lisa Larson-Bunnell (via an email) and Jeff Vaught (live at the meeting) voiced how they thought rejoining NLC was a good idea. Would either of them care to reimburse the city for the funds that these three apparently wasted.
