From: Harold Weber
Columbus
I thought I’d share and give my opinion on the research I’ve done on the two Republican candidates for mayor.
First, the observations of Mayor Kristen Brown’s behavior:
Brown shared her goals for her first term as mayor and recently reported her successes in achieving these goals.
Observations of Jim Lienhoop’s behavior:
Lienhoop’s campaign and television ad claims (the quotes below are from TV ads):
“We must adopt an honest budgeting process.” Does this mean that the current budgeting process is dishonest? Please cite facts.
“… and eliminate unnecessary spending.” Again, examples would help.
“By working together and respecting each other” and “learned how to treat others at an early age.” I have an example for these statements. It was reported that he spent his entire time at one meeting glaring at Brown.
Lienhoop favors having everyone pay for all-day preschool despite the fact that the voters have rejected this proposal twice.
A campaign claim is made that no new businesses have been attracted to Columbus over the past few years. Lienhoop seems to be blaming Brown because she chose not to go on the last trip to Asia. But Japan is just now coming out of its recession, and the U.S. dollar has become 58 percent more expensive to Japan since January 2012.
How could anyone expect to attract new Japanese businesses under these conditions? My opinion is that new businesses can be attracted to Columbus by providing more local technical training opportunities, and we already have that covered here.
Lienhoop accepted a $5,000 campaign donation from the owner of LHP and voted in favor of giving LHP a $250,000 tax abatement. In my opinion, this is not ethical.
Notably absent from his campaign ads are any achievements he has had while he’s been in public office.
Lienhoop’s voting record (These records are available to anyone who wants to look them up in the meeting minutes published on the city of Columbus website):
Voted for tax to pick up trash.
Voted for spending tax dollars on downtown outdoor sports complex. The property included a hazardous waste site. I believe that this was also the site that required hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of fill.
Voted for spending tax dollars to build ski lakes on the State Road 46 flood plain. Common sense shows that the more the floodplain areas are filled in, the worse future flooding will become.
Another item discovered was the 2011 and 2012 state audits of the Columbus Redevelopment Commission (Leinhoop was a member). In December 2012, The Republic reported, “A state audit of the previous administration’s Columbus Redevelopment Commission alleges that it failed to follow statutory processes, circumvented public bidding laws and lacked regular reporting and transparency.”
After considering all this material, I’m in for Brown.
