By Donna Westfall
For those of us that are not Martha McClure supporters and continue to wonder how she wins each election by 20 or 30 votes, it came as no real surprise to hear that she was not appointed YET to the position of Project Director for the State of California Safe Routes to Schools program at $45/hour ($17,000/year = $34,000 for a 2 year contract).
I call it a temporary victory. About 15 folks attended and spoke. Anticipating the rubber stamp blowback, Attorney Bob Black and former fellow Democrat (you know the same guy that practices with Attorney Martha Rice and have the whole town sewn up by representing virtually every agency in this town including 1.) the City of Crescent City, 2.) Solid Waste Authority, 3) Harbor District 4.) LTco, 5) Big Rock Water District, 6) Airport Authority and more) was there and recommended the “appearance of impropriety be further studied.”
Reading between the lines, this additional scrutiny may very well affect the Commission’s decision even if the matter is not deemed a conflict of interest.
A Special Meeting will be held Monday, April 20th for LTCO at 11:00 am in the BOS Room at the Flynn Center on 9th and “H” Streets to give McClure another run at the spot.
I’d like to see a lot more people show up and express their displeasure with the her possible appointment. That means get up and speak. You have three minutes. Say something!
I know some people that think she’s wonderful, that she helps a lot of kids. Well, she’s a teacher and she’s paid to do that. But a couple things stick out in my mind about McClure.
She’s Rude To Me
Whenever I see some of my former fellow Democrats at a meeting or on the street, (McClure and Kathryn Murray in particular) I can be assured that they will ignore me. After being a lifelong Democrat, due to their actions and behavior I switched parties. Why in the world would a political figure want a reputation for being rude? What besides being blatantly rude do I hold against McClure?
The Fluoride Issue
When several of us attended the Democratic Central Committee to get on a future agenda to discuss the harmfulness of water fluoridation, we were ignored. There’s something to be said about party loyalty. It was the Democrats that pushed fluoridation through the California legislature. But, when scientific evidence shows it’s overwhelmingly harmful, one would expect that a professional teacher in particular would take notice and stop hiding behind party loyalty.
It always made me wonder if there were any back room deals involving the money side of keeping fluoride in our water. The movie, The Big Easy, comes to mind where cops are divvying up the cash for distribution to their fellow law enforcement officers. All illegal. The City of Crescent City was NEVER thorough in listing out all the costs associated with fluoride and that was suspicious. Particularly when they were pretty thorough about listing out the $100,000 they claim I cost the city due to my questioning what looked like corruption and fraud on the wastewater treatment plant upgrade. By the way, new evidence is continuing to surface.
Please spread the word to show up April 20th at 11 am. Speak up! Stop letting these rude politicians make money from the taxes you pay. Again think about term limits.
Hopefully Martha’s and Black’s completed conflict of interest form 700 will be provided to the public. I believe there are fines involved for missing and misinformation on a completed form.
We should form a citizens group to inspect all of the conflict of interest forms required by the state from most if not all government workers. There are certainly many questionable appointments of the same people over and over and over again. See State controller’s gov. compensation
link below to see the figures the honorable city, county, and Special district representatives offer as wages, benefits, population. Since many, most, or all of the figures are incorrect or misleading the data needs corrected.
http://www.sco.ca.gov/compensation_search.html
Term limits are way over due.