The other day, I posted about the back and forth between myself and City Hall in reference to the term ‘free money’. There was something more about it that I wanted to showcase all on its own. The juvenility of two civic leaders with their behavior while public servants. Among so much wrong I’ve written on at City Hall, these two take the cake.
Mr. Graham got into the Council President seat twice by running unopposed. He wields the considerable power he has over the council proceedings by dint of his having had to do nothing to earn it. Voting for himself, he gets the job. He has helped obfuscate the truth when it doesn’t serve ‘the team’ at City Hall, example:
THE PETTY TYRANNY OF WHITEHALL CODE ENFORCEMENT (PART FIVE) ***CITY COUNCIL EDITION***
This from the blogpost about citizen concerns over the code enforcement department:
“(After I’d left the meeting) @ 19:29:35 Council President Jim Graham calls on the Infrastructure, Maintenance Services Chairperson Gregg but says, “Infrastructure, Maintenance, Service and Code Enforcement Chairperson Gregg.” There is then stifled laughter among several at the table.
@19:31:23 Councilperson Wes Kantor finishes speaking regarding youth soccer as part of the Parks and Recreation Committee.
Graham: “Is that like code enforcement?”
Kantor: “Yea, code enforcement.”
Maggard: (laughs)
(The meeting finishes out with the awful Gerald Dixon gone from their presence, only friendly faces now, with Council President Jim Graham making attempts at humor with mocking allusions to code enforcement in otherwise misplaced areas of the meeting, to stifled delight and laughter. The laughter of Kim Maggard is clearly audible)”
The inference being that if you bring serious concerns and allegations to your government representatives, they’ll just mock and laugh at you. Most particularly if you’ve criticized them.
Need I tell you about the post earlier this year when Mr. Graham loudly berated me in council committee chambers as the meeting finished:
Here is all the video I got of him yelling at me. Unfortunately, because he’d unnerved me while I was disassembling the tripod and because my camera was new, I kept fumbling to get it to record while the Whitehall City Council President stood over me, yelling.
Here is President Graham caught on mic using mocking and belittling terms for citizens attending council meetings:
Graham to Kantor: “That’s Broom Hilda”
Kantor: “Huh?”
Graham: “That’s ‘Broom Hilda”, the one who had the water bill. I believe that’s her. Yea, the one on the right.”
Then there is Councilman and President pro tempore Bailey (meaning: acting President of Council when Mr. Graham is unable to act as President of Council): lacks professionalism (Calls me, a citizen and constituent he is paid to represent, a bully for exercising my very American right to defend my city against corruption in City Hall, suggested to me that a female council peer’s problems simply derived from a need to ‘get laid’…), is government’s biggest toady, (fighting those who oppose his ‘teams’ workings while simultaneously spreading lavish praise for that ‘team’) and mocks citizens.
This is me below, calling him out after he both claimed I’d bullied his family and suggested Charter Review Commission members (people who are creating suggestions that have the possibility of affecting our city), “shouldn’t be challenged”:
Of course, Councilman Bailey never answered to his affront to our Democracy in saying city officials “shouldn’t be challenged” but instead simply reiterated that I was a bully, like I’m a kid making fun of an overweight student online instead of the truth of the matter; a citizen calling out corruption and wrongdoing of his elected officials! Here he suggests something which is antithetical to our country’s tenets but because I exercise the sanctity of that country’s tenets, it is me who is in the wrong?!
So then, here we are the week after I brought up the misleading labeling of the term ‘free money’ after Mr. Woodruff’s presentation in Council chambers. They think I’m a joke. They think fiscal responsibility and citizen’s concern with his city government with a serious aspect regarding our tax dollars is mockable. Watch this video of Bailey and Graham in the Committee meeting. Mr. Woodruff is talking about grant money for bridges and Mayor Maggard chimes in saying, “We’ll take it”. During this exchange, Councilman Bailey is merely listening with his head down. After the Mayor speaks he looks at my camera and turns to Graham, getting his attention. You can slightly hear him say but also read his lips saying, ‘Free money’, which, upon Graham’s reply, amuses him to the point that he hides his laughter from the camera behind Ms. Elmore’s empty chair. (I hate to break this to him but, the camera still sees you doing this Mr. Bailey) Mr. Graham gets caught up in this hilarity and you see him move forward and to the left with eagerness to mock a citizen for his rightful and serious concerns, while Bailey continues to hide his laughter. Mr. Rodriguez is also amused after Mr. Graham says what he says. Everyone in the room knows what he’s doing but, of course, no one dares to speak out for the citizen’s sake against this outrage. He couches his question in “clarification” but its clear its just these two immature ‘boys’ in adult positions thinking its funny to mock citizens from their important positions. Here’s the video. Watch Bailey and Graham:
I don’t care if other citizen’s don’t like me for whatever reason, I don’t care if you think I have vindictive motives, I don’t care if you think I’m ‘long-winded’ or a ‘smarty-pants’, what is happening in YOUR NAME at YOUR City Hall is an outrage to professional and reasonable governance and our representative government. These two ‘boys’ shouldn’t be in office. At least Mr. Morrison and Ms. Conison and others have the professionalism and respect for the seat and their constituents to behave like the adults they are. Neither Mr. Bailey or Mr. Graham deserve the seats they hold but in a city with such lacks citizen participation and low voter turnout* and low voter information**, this is the sad result. Whether you like me sharing these things in public or not, whether you pay attention or not, this still goes on. Nevertheless, its still in your names as taxpayers and your names as the community of Whitehall. As for me, I’m appalled and angry. The fact that more aren’t is distressing and helps enable this kind of schoolyard behavior.
* In 2017, Chris Rodriguez got 8 1/2% of the registered vote in Ward 1, while I got 6 1/2%…only 15% of registered voters in Ward 1 came out to vote. Mr. Rodriguez, whose record I thoroughly explained, got yet another opportunity to do nothing because of 2% of a measly turnout. Whether I won or not, that’s simply awful given countries desperate for their own democracy and the thousands, if not millions who’ve died for this right.
WHITEHALL WARD 1 COUNCILMAN CHRIS RODRIGUEZ: A REVEALING INDICTMENT OF HIS OFFICIAL RECORD
** I have endeavored to bring you information which exposes wrongdoing in our city’s government, that which seemingly hasn’t made a dent in their still being there. The cost of imparting this information has not been cheap, to take such a public drubbing in my own hometown simply because I wanted to do the right thing: by my country’s Constitution, ethical principles in government, my own town’s government and fellow Whitehallians they’re supposed to be representing. Despite this, I have continued, unbowed, because, plain and simply, its the truth and because I know I’m communicating with such a low-interest public, I have chosen the long haul, if that’s what it takes to get through to them. After all, isn’t your hometown worth your fight, your effort? Isn’t this country and its tenets worth it? I think they are and so have stuck my neck out against an entire City Hall to bring you this info. I do believe people are listening and people do understand their City Hall.
Whitehall Watchblog 
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