Time we all thought for ourselves and ignore the “political experts” and their advice.

I hope that Joe McNamara reads everything that comes across his desk as closely as he has seemed to have read this proposal.

To rebut the legislative wizard’s points:

“First, the petition is “self contradictory,” said McNamara, in that it calls for the election of nine members of council in 2009 when only the at-large seats are in play.” – I am glad to hear he is not confused about what seats are up for election this year. If he doesn’t find it confusing then why is he and his fellow self-interested politicians trying to confuse the voters? He leaves out important words (very disingenuous) and as a lawyer he should know that the charter has to be read as a whole document and various sections harmonized together. This is just a diversionary scare tactic, that the media is growing tired about, hence the lack of news coverage today. His boys Terry and Adam didn’t cut it on July 9th so he was left to clean up their mess today.

“Second, the amendment conflicts with the rest of the City Charter, he said, by laying out terms of service at odds with terms already delineated.” – The amendment expressly covers that. Chalk that up as a big MOOT POINT.

“Third, the requirements for the super district candidates are unclear in several instances such as the necessary number of signatures for petitions.” – Nothing doing on this one. Again, a diversionary tactic. Language in the amendment states a “super-district shall be defined as a district…”. There will be two years to clean up any minor situations like that but absent that election officials would apply requirements of a district to the “super-district”.

I saw a quote on WTOL today from Mr. Mcnamara stating that these issues have to be addressed before the merits of the issue is debated. Well, I don’t think they want to debate the merits because the voters are on our side, the plan saves sorely needed money and it provides better and more accountable representation to Toledo residents. They would rather waste time spinning their wheels on baseless process questions and conjuring up scenarios only possible by suspending common sense and the laws of Ohio and the city. If only our leaders could use this creativity toward solving Toledo’s problems.

Where does Joe get his radical approach to creating legislation? Certainly not from his fellow Democrats in the US Congress.