The garbage fee in Oshkosh was and is extremely unpopular. It's understandable that politicians voting for it would try to rationalize the vote, change the subject, pledge to do better next time, or grovel for forgiveness. It's fair for them to do these things.
What's not fair, and what creates an election year stench as bad as month old garbage, is for politicians to suggest or (worse) flat out state that they DIDN'T vote for a garbage fee that they DID vote for. In her Eye On Oshkosh blog, Cheryl Hentz posts that "Questions remain about garbage fee vote." She writes:
"When Oshkosh Common Council members and incumbent candidates Bryan Bain and Meredith Scheuermann were on Eye on Oshkosh two weeks ago both stated they did not vote for the garbage fee." Feeling that those claims were odd but not having the facts in front of her, Cheryl did not challenge them. Neither did her cohost Miles Maguire. After doing some research, Cheryl found that Bain and Scheuermann did in fact vote for the fee.
Cheryl concludes that no matter what the reason why Bryan and Meredith voted for the fee, "in the end a vote for something is just that, and to state otherwise, even if one has what they believe to be the best of reasons, is disingenuous and disappointing."
Because of that garbage fee vote, lots of citizen in Oshkosh ended up having to do the hard work necessary to write up a referendum question, get thousands of signatures to place the question on the November ballot, and campaign for it. Anyone who's ever been involved in that kind of effort knows how time consuming and frustrating it is, especially when it's being done to correct the actions of people you voted for to represent you. For elected officials who placed citizens in that position to then turn around and not be completely candid about their votes is just one more symptom of our broken government here in Oshkosh.
We can and must do better.
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Tony, Miles Maguire has posted a coment on my blog about this. When you and I spoke yesterday I told you I would go through and review the tape. I have and now I, too, have posted an update and a correction.
Bryan Bain did not say on the show that he voted against the fee. Meredith Scheuermann, however, clearly said she did not vote for it. And it was she, who in another sentence said that she, Bryan and Burk Tower did not vote for the fee. The whole discussion is recapped on my site at Eye on Oshkosh.blogspot.com.
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