According to this story in the Post, the Missouri Ethics Commission will soon be sending letters to MT Schneider and his ilk as part of their investigation of over-the-limit campaign contributions.
The article states that the investigations will be held "off the record" until the case is finalized. However, even if "ol' Empty" claims a hardship for his pre-July 19 contributions, there is no disputing his post-July 19 over-the-limit contributions are illegal.
C'mon Empty! Do the right thing and give back those donations! Or, do you have to wait until the Missouri Ethics Commission FORCES you to do the right thing?
The article states that the investigations will be held "off the record" until the case is finalized. However, even if "ol' Empty" claims a hardship for his pre-July 19 contributions, there is no disputing his post-July 19 over-the-limit contributions are illegal.
C'mon Empty! Do the right thing and give back those donations! Or, do you have to wait until the Missouri Ethics Commission FORCES you to do the right thing?
6 comments:
He will claim a hardship because he was sued. He has more money than Carter has liver pills. I was astonished to find out he spent $29,000 to become Mayor of Overland for two years. Ego Maniac. I'm sure he is under reporting that amount but to put it in perspective a while back in the paper I believe it said Ritenour spent about the same amount for their Proposition R which was for nine municipalities. Now think about it MT spends as much as Ritenour does to elected in one municipality and Ritenour spent that much on nine municipalities its almost a sin. I think he spent even more money than that. I wonder if it would be worth while to write letters to the Ethics Commission. I mean look what Slay did.
I think it speaks volumes on the "ethics" (or lack thereof) when the mayor has to be forced to give back his illegal contributions.
He can't play dumb, I think this blog has brought it to his attention.
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen,
Nobody knows but Jesus,
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen,
Bear, Come on, always thought you were a straight shooter, a corn shucker, a chicken plucker but in dodging the question you can now add bullet ducker.
A "user fee" is just that a user fee. No different than the sewer lateral tax we pay at the same time as our property tax.
I guess because it is part of your tax bill one might look at it as a "tax".
However, in effect, it will reduce the amount you are paying. If that is proposed and passed, each lot would be charged the user fee. Since some of these lots are not part of the current trash system (manufacturing, vacant lots, multi-family dwellings) then the cost is spread across more people. And, thus, it is actually lower.
Finewine, you can sue the city and the courts would decide if it is actually legal or not.
FineWine has always been a "free-luncher" in that she always prefers someone else to pay her cost-of-living.
A user fee for residential trash service is far different that the user fee for sewer service. The biggest difference is that property owners paying the user fee for sewer service are actually using the sewer service.
So the solution is to extract a user fee from property owners that do not use the service and use that amount to reduce cost to those who use the service would be a non-user fee.
Under this policy the amount citizens pay for service would not be directly related to the price negotiated for service.
The City would negotiate a price. Determine how much revenue would be generated by charging all property owners the price. Subtract the amount generated by non-users from the total amount generated. Divide the difference by number of users to get an average user price which would then be charged to users.
Commercial non-users would be taxed to subsidize residential users. Actually this regime argues that residents pass the entire cost of residential trash service onto commercial non-users. Free money right Wino, assuming life is static of course.
Commercial non-users don't have to operate in Overland. How long would commercial non-users pay for residential users in addition to the amount they currently pay for commercial trash service?
At some point, commercial interests would simply abandon their commercial property as it is no longer economically viable to operate here.
In order for a residential user fee to work it must be restricted to residents. As the "user fee as subsidy" has been show to not be a viable option, the best solution would probably be to determine an average cost for a standard service and have trash company send each customer living on residential property a bill. If they don't pay, put a lien on house and move on.
Gravy Crane Durham said...
"but you can bet there are so many more."
If you can tell me how many you think is so many and the amount you desire to bet, I'll consider making book on your wager.
November 7, 2007 8:01 AM
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This is a most contentious problem under ideal conditions. For example, Bear says there are "so many" people who need trash assistance and willing to bet on it. I half jokingly say I will take her bet if she can determine what exactly is "so many". She dodges the challenge by replying "more than one". In that simple exercise we have demonstrated the folly of this entire line of thinking.
November 8, 2007
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November 9, 2007
Gravy, it is not my job to know "how many is so many". It's common sense to know that there are plenty of people (obviously more than one or two) in need of assistance in Overland and elsewhere. And I do feel compassion for these people, that's part of being a good hearted American. So.....I'm not dodging the question, that to me is what the city council is good at.
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Bear,
How do you plan to allocate a scarce resource such as government sponsored aid for people who have trouble paying for trash service? We cannot pay for everyone's trash service, so how do you plan to determine who qualifies and who does not qualify for assistance?
November 9, 2007 9:05 AM
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Bear, Come on, always thought you were a straight shooter, a corn shucker, a chicken plucker but in dodging the question you can now add bullet ducker.
November 12, 2007 8:39 AM
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Posted by BEAR63114 on November 12, 2007, 11:03 am
User logged in as: BEAR63114
I must be missing something. You asked me a question?
Yes, see above. Note the "question mark" at end of sentence and the question is addressed to you.
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