I just wanted my CD.....

Last week our Muskegon county commission voted on an enormous smorgasbord of spending items, including a 9 month SEIU contract that included a retroactive, across the board pay raise and 4 EXTRA days off for all of those union members.
That's in addition to the two months off each year they already get.
Read the memorandum for specifics:
The union contract information that has been given to the commissioners (and us taxpayers) is 2 pages (scroll to pg. 13-14):
(http://co.muskegon.mi.us/boardofcommissioners/agendas/waysmeans_11_02_03.pdf)


During the meeting, there were some very interesting questions and answers about the spending that totaled well into the millions of dollars of American taxpayer's money.
And a very important explanation of his "NO" vote on the union contract by commissioner Alan Jager.


But, at the end of the meeting, there was a particularly obnoxious and thuggish call-out of a citizen sitting quietly in the peanut gallery by commissioner Bob Scolnik.


A loss of composure that made clear his contempt for any citizen who would dare criticize county commissioners.

That citizen being ....me.


The official minutes of meetings as published by county clerk Waters have recently and mysteriously "disappeared" any comments by citizens and even by commissioners who want to explain their vote on an item.

So, I thought us citizens of Muskegon ought to be able to hear the exact words of our county leaders.

As spoken by those leaders.

The county has a policy of voice recording official county meetings so the next day I went to the county clerk's office to buy my copy of the recording.


Not too expensive, $5.

But I asked if I could have it sent to my via e-mail and the nice lady said that might be possible.

So I left her my phone number and asked if I wasn't going to get it as an e-mail, would she call me so I could return and pick up the CD I'd paid for.

Next day, no e-mail.

No call.

So I went back to the county clerk's office and asked why I hadn't received my copy of the audio of the county meeting.

And was told that the nice woman was in a meeting.

So left my phone number again and asked if she would call me when convenient.

No call again.

So, the next day I returned again, found the nice lady and asked why the silence to my request.

She told me she hadn't gotten the approval from county clerk Nancy Waters to e-mail the file to me.

Two days had passed since my first request.

She hadn't bothered to call me.

So, I asked if I could get the CD I'd already paid for and another very helpful woman in the office made it for me.

When I got home, I opened the CD, listened and...big surprise!

Everything from about half way, from the start of real commissioner and audience comments was garbled.


Especially commissioner Bob Scolnik's aggressive accusations at a citizen sitting in the audience.

Who'd of guessed?

Now, I'm not a paranoid person.

But this is the third time this has happened to me.

The first was this Rosemary Woods moment:

http://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/2010/04/rosemary-woods-moment.html

The second was when I asked to purchase an audio CD of a meeting and was told that "the system just didn't work" that day.

And now I see my $5 bucks only bought me everything but the important words of our commissioners.

I'm going back to the clerk's office tomorrow.

I'm bringing a flash drive so they might give it another try.

Maybe this time I'll get the entire audio.

I'll let you know!