Holy moly, but does the black ops PR firm known as the Humboldt Mirror ever have a smoking hot story this morning. We would only add that the $10,000 donation from a SoCal developer to the Bonnie Neely for Supervisor campaign seems to have come not from the developer himself, but the developer’s corporation — a triple-touchy matter, obviously.
Of all the insane political races we’re going to see this year, the race for Fourth District Supervisor will likely be the insanest. There’s going be a strong get-Neely contingent both locally and statewide, owing to her position on the California Coastal Commission and opposition to the Marina Center project. For all intents and purposes, it’s going to be a statewide election played out on our turf.
What today’s tidbit shows is that Neely can play at that level too. God help us all.
This article appears in Tree Cop.
Wow.
Wow what? I fail to see what the story is, a politician accepting a campaign donation from a developer is new, something unheard of before today? If so, maybe someone needs to speak with Tom Daschle.
There are 12 commissioners, the project was approved 11-1 well before Neely was chair, are the other 10 involved,. has anyone taken the time to check the contributions of the other 10, I have, you’ll be surprised, then again, maybe not.
Bonnie also took another $10,000 campaign contribution from Bill Pierson.
So I guess there is nothing wrong with taking $10,000 campaign contribution from Arkley.
After all, his is local.
The "Wow" Rosebud is that your comment shows the disillusionment that exists in our political system. To see it as "normal" for politicians to be grossly funded by the very interests seeking approval of their projects or point of view is absolutely disgusting to say the least.
When I, being a "person" and all, contributes money to a politician, it’s not to garner favor, it’s because I want that person to represent me. When any corporation contributes money to a politician, it goes beyond that, especially in this case, yet in our twisted system they’re considered a "person" too and have a right to do that.
What does "grossly funded" mean? It’s a campaign contribution. The project in question was approved in January ’04. Neely was appointed to the CCC in May of that year, where is the quid pro quo?
Plenty of people donate to candidates they think will best represent their interests in government, that includes developers, businessmen and women, private citizens etc.
If you can provide one shred of evidence that the Neely donation was either for services rendered or for future considerations, please do so. Otherwise you’re just implying a conflict.
@UmmmJohn: Yes, $10,000 is a gross amount of cash for an election by one party. I don’t care how prevalent it is in our system to drop large amounts of cash on candidates.
And implying conflict is the point – what reason would a Southern California corporation, not person, care about Neely other than to potentially have her vote for a project favorable to them in the future?
It’s ultimately her choice whether she would side with said corporation on a future project, but it was also her choice to accept or decline the donation to begin with. Like the decisions any politician makes, the “company” a politician keeps reflects on their character and should raise flags for voters who feel uncomfortable with where their funding is coming from.
And other than rich or well-off individuals, I doubt the average American can fork over $10k to a candidate.
In many places, $10,000 is not alot of money. In big state and national races, it is not alot of money.
But here, it is alot of money. And there is the APPEARANCE of impropriety, even if none exists.
Couple that with the whole sanctimonious Measure T scam, the hypocritical liars now slurping up the out of area money and puffing up in supreme justification "well, they all do it." "Politicians accept donations, who knew?" as if we don’t remember – yeah, it is a big deal. It means someone will say anything, so anything, to get elected, and has no scruples or principles.
Hank – I really hate that feature that makes all caps into a smaller font. All caps are one way to add emphasis in this otherwise flat online world – AND there are some things like PTA, FBI, etc. where we NEED to use CAPS. It’s distracting.
Yeah. The idea was that we’d have super-classy SMALL CAPS. Haut typography. But I agree that it doesn’t really work.
Super-classy? Maybe not. But the SMALL CAPS are nice because they do EMPHASIZE without overwhelming or sounding like YELLING!
Maybe it is because I like fonts, and some fonts don’t have small caps, but I’ve never bought that idea that caps = yelling. It’s simply an emphasis. Sometimes it is comical when people use it to extreme, but the ‘super classy’ small caps just feel like typos and affect the flow. I think getting upset about caps as yelling is just as comical as those who abuse the usage.
Anyway, I hope you remove that feature.
The small caps feature has a nice, claming effect on commenters who like to scream, like Rose.
ALWAYS nice to hear from my friend Joel.
Calm down, and use italics if you must emphasize.
Italics are nice for some things. BUT, sometimes they just aren’t enough. You have your likes, Joel. No one begrudges you that.
Oh, but Italics are enough. All caps is for people who have a weak argument.
Yea, I agree about the italics thing. I don’t know why some people want to type in all caps. Looks wack.
Sure, Joel, whatever you say, you snide pos.
It’s sad that some people have such low standards, but, whatever.