Those members of the Port Orchard City Council who made it a point to chastise Mayor Kim Abel for appearing before the Washington State Legislature to express her unhappiness over the proposed NASCAR track in South Kitsap, were right on the money,
As a private citizen — and an American — Abel certainly owns right to her opinion, and to voice it. But as the mayor — as she well knows — she doesn't have the right to represent herself as speaking for the citizens of South Kitsap on this issue. Had she made the distinction to the legislature between private citizen and public official, it would have been one thing, but she didn't. She made it appear that her position was that of the city — and that is a flat out lie.
In my view, the council should have publicly censured Abel for such a blatantly politically-motivated action, and sent a letter to the legislature stating that the mayor was wrong in appearing and making it exceedingly clear her testimony was her own opinion and in no way represented the position of the city.
Abel isn't the mayor of South Kitsap, and there has been no public opinion poll to learn the feelings of City of Port Orchard residents — Abel's only constituency — on the track. And the Elway poll taken by the county suggests a 50-50 split on the issue when measured countywide, with a majority in South Kitsap in favor of the proposal. Approval numbers also go up countywide when the "public financing" lie is clarified.
In essence, Abel intentionally lied to the legislature about exactly who she represents. She shouldn't be allowed to get away with that.
I have to agree. She doesn't speak for me either and had no business even being in Olympia about this — unless it was to express her own personal opinion.
ReplyDeleteAbel has been a TERRIBLE mayor. Our city is is total economic disarray, and needs some REAL leadership.
Lary, have YOU ever considered running for mayor?
And Bozeman does not represent all of Bremerton but your not giving him a hard time. God Larry you are such a right wing hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteTwenty bucks says you don't have the balls to publish this comment.
And you don't even have the balls to even sign your name — so I guess collecting my $20 from a hypocritical deadbeat like you is out of the question.
ReplyDeleteWas there anything substantive that Abel said to the House Finance Committee which you disagreed with? You can find her statement in the audio recording at 1:46:26 to 1:49:40 archived by TVW.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your entry, in which you seemed pretty het up about it, I went and listened again to what she said (having watched it live on TVW earlier).
I didn't notice anything to get upset about.
In fact, it was sort of nice to hear -- if only briefly -- someone say that part of the revenue generated by the speedway ought to be spent on roads serving the site.
Is your only problem the fact that she went on her own rather than ask the city council to take a position sometime in the interval between Nov. 2005 (when the financing proposal was rolled out) and Feb. 2007?
I ask, because we don't have a time machine that would allow us to go back and give her the hook before she spoke. However, the matter is still pending in the legislature, so any position you want to take on any part of the bill needs to be stated now.
It isn't what she said but the fact she represented herself as speaking in an official capacity for the residents of the city that is the issue. Since the city council has never taken a position, how can she testify as representing the city's position?
ReplyDeleteAs far as the city council taking a position between 2005 and now — that's a leadership issue. Or perhaps a better comment would be that's it's a LACK of leadership issue on her part. But that's nothing new.
She also did misrepresent herself and the city and admitted to doing so at the Kitsap Sun blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.kitsapsun.com/kitsap/nascar/archive/2007/03/po_council_members_take_on_may.html
There is going to be very little traffic going through Port Orchard, I have no idea why anyone would want to go through PO when you can just go down to the HWY 3/16 interchange.
Be sure to read the comments.