Republicans questioned Friday whether city Councilor Art Ward pushed a friend into filing a Freedom of Information complaint that could harm his rival in the Democratic mayoral primary.
But Jay Meisinger, who filed the complaint, said Friday that Ward had no input.
“Art Ward didn’t have his hand in it,” said Meisinger, who is a friend of Ward’s and the commander of the American Legion post on Hooker Court.
Republican mayoral contender Ken Johnson said he knows Meisinger and “I’m not sure I believe that Jay Meisinger wrote this complaint.”
City Republican Chairman Art Mocabee said it is “obvious that Art Ward is behind all of this along with one or two others.”
Johnson said that he would be “extremely disappointed if I learned that” Ward was behind it.
Meisinger said that he got mad about the scripting issue because Democrats were “eliminating one of their own” by trying to hide the script from Ward.
“It’s like everybody wants to play tag and they’re leaving somebody out. And somebody should be held accountable,” he said.
Meisinger said that his wife prodded him to act on his anger and file the complaint, which he spent weeks polishing before filing it in early July.
Ward said that he told Meisinger how to file an FOI complaint and read the paperwork before it was submitted to the state. But, Ward said, he had nothing to do with its wording and no changes were made after he read it.
“He was adamant that he wanted to file one,” Ward said. “I told him how to do it, at his request.”
“Are we supposed to believe that this is not politically motivated?” Johnson asked.
“And how does this serve the best interests of the people of Bristol?”
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
10 comments:
Ellen~
Step Up To The Plate and Admit/Apologize For What You Did Wrong! If you did nothing wrong like you say~Then WHY DID YOU HIDE IT over these Past Months! And You Want A Debate and Say You Won't See The Questions Prior~Who Are You Kidding...Not The City Of Bristol.
wonder what position moccabee and johnson would be taking if stortz or rimcoski were the odd men out; probably wouldn't matter to either of them, after all, seeing as how they can't even support their own.
I don't understand the complaint from others that Mr. Messinger or Mr Ward are involved in making this traitorous deed public. Since When is it a crime to enlighten the victims (Bristol residents) that they have been DUPED? Instead of THANKS, they are attacked as if the Hero bringing this to our attention is the bad guy! This makes the accusers look more shallow than ever. Do they point fingers at the rape victim when she goes to the police as well? I, for one, feel raped learning of this. I spent countless hours, spent a lot of money advertising issues in that housing code, got people to go to the meetings and speak their heart on what it could mean. For what? For what I suspected all along...that the vote was predetermined by Mrs Sassu. What is appalling is that our other trusted council went along with it, except for Mr Ward!! I am truly disappointed in the very official puppets that we put in office. Had I known, that outcome of the code and the meetings would have been much different. It becomes apparent, now, why Sassu (Zoppo) spoke so valantly of GBPOA and myself. Let her go against her printed public words, now. Thanks to ANYONE who brought this to our attention!! Now we can look forward to being displayed publicly as the Duped City of Bristol. I feel almost stupid - but I'll rectify that.
Unbelievable!! A person comes up with an agenda for the council she is on to forward a plan she is championing? For shame Ellen for showing leadership on an issue and preparing an organised, detailed, "pitch" for your vision of the future of our town. Leave it to the ubstructionists in this town of both parties to be behind this smear campaign. Maybe people like Art Ward should attend more meetings. That might go a long way to being better informed.
How the hell do we have a debate here if we have to wait for a moderator to decide when and if a comment gets posted?
Karen Pio, it's obvious that you are jealous of Ellen. She is a successful woman in politics, which is something you tried but failed to be.
Slum lords had gotten away with too much in this city for too long. New regulations were long overdue.
Ellen is the only one of the candidates who will force them to be responsible.
It is so very obvious that Ward was behind the FOI complaint. It is also obvious that the complaint was not written by either Meissenger or Ward - it was written by someone who has a legal background. How many of you actually knew what the term "interlocutory relief" meant before looking it up? Way to go Art. You can't run a campaign on your own merits, so you get your friends to smear Ellen to deflect from your years of ineffectiveness on the City Council. I would like for the public to see how your list of accomplishments match up next to Ellen's. Absolutely no comparison.
ellen's devious tactics will result in her smearing herself, she won't need help from anyone else.
I've known Jay and his wife Carol for many years. They are both very successful and intelligent people. They don't need anyone to speak for them and they are perfectly capable of filing this FOI complaint themselves.
Many people have questioned the validity of the meeting after the scripts came out of hiding. I'm glad that Jay took the time to file this complaint. It needs to be looked into by impartial experts.
I'm surprised by Ken Johnson. He seems to be taking 2 very different stands on this issue. He is quoted as saying that Ellen's actions are "the height of hipocrisy" and "the outcome, the actual vote, was predetermined" but then his next breath was "how does this (the FOI complaint) serve the best interest of the people of Bristol?"
If the outcome was pre-determined then the best interest of the citizens of Bristol would be represented by having all the secrecy and lies brought to light, addressed by a neutral professional commission (FOI), and rectified.
Why should we let our government get away with keeping the truth from us and having potentially illegal meetings? This is not something that the voting populations should turn their backs on. It sends the message that we are allowing out city leaders to do whatever they want with our city and our tax dollars without giving us the chance to be HEARD on what we want.
This type of "meeting" is simply a show or theatrical performance for us to watch since the outcome was predetermined.
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