From: Bob Snively
Columbus
I will admit to being like most people in that I never paid much attention to politics and local government until after I retired and started reading the paper pretty much from front to back.
I started reading about how much of our resources were being poured into the downtown area and noticing how little seemed to being spent on the rest of Columbus. In the midst of the recession we were spending money on parking garages and tearing down the old Commons. Then I read that we were in such dire financial straits that we needed to add a $14 a month fee to pick up our trash each week.
Then I started reading about this Kristen Brown and all the questions she was asking about the amount of money that CDI and the city council were spending on downtown. To be honest, I didn’t know very much about her, and then my brother told me that she was a distant cousin and that she had just returned to Columbus.
I asked myself why it was that I, a lifelong city resident, didn’t actually know that much about what was going on here and someone who had been away from here for years seemed to know so much more.
As I read more and more about questionable spending on projects such as the proposed ski lakes and outdoor sports complex, the madder I got. I felt that all of this was going on using my tax dollars with very little regard for how I felt about it. I felt I lived out in the largest suburb, the one that surrounded downtown.
I read as Brown endured the slings and arrows for daring to question what City Hall was doing. I read about them even accusing her falsely of stealing documents from the clerk-treasurer’s office, a charge later proved unfounded and drummed up because she was asking for all of CDI’s receipts for the money they were spending.
When Brown announced for mayor, I got on the bandwagon, and I am glad that I did. She is the only politician I ever met who actually has fulfilled every campaign promise she made and more. If she has ruffled feathers with her management style, I don’t much care. She had to do that in order to bring city government along with her on this journey that she started three years ago.
The neglected infrastructure is being improved, and the city is a much better place because she is mayor. I urge you to vote for Brown and continue the progress.
