Nan Whaley was AWOL at tonight’s packed Dayton City Commission meeting.

It’s really too bad, because I called for her resignation.

The other 100 speakers or so- asked for the city commission to not destroy the Paul Knoop Prairie to put up another warehouse by the airport. You know- because there aren’t any other vacant spots ANYWHERE in Dayton where they could do this- like near where people who need jobs live (Dayton Tire, McCall Printing, Nibco Foundry sites for example).

And then there was me. My opening line- I’ve never seen a warehouse that could pollinate a plant that ends up as my dinner.  I thanked them for not letting me speak last week, because I got a much bigger audience this week. And, I shared the dirty secret with the crunchy granola types who care about our planet- you didn’t pay the politicians off so you won’t get your way.

And then proceeded to tear into the feckless five minus their leader on how they screwed up on the Klan, on the disaster relief, on the failure of our water system.

But here’s the most important takeaway- Darryl Fairchild asked if this was a done deal already on the sale of the prairie. Simple enough question, yes or no answer. He asked it twice. Speakers asked. And guess what? He was willing to leave the meeting without an answer. The city manager, the airport director, the rest of the commission- no one knew.

This is why I’m running for Dayton City Commission. If I was on the commission and I didn’t have an answer on something that simple in the meeting- Ms. Dickstein, Mr. Slaybaugh would both be unemployed before the end of the meeting.

If you want to see my presentation- I’ll have a video up tomorrow.

Here’s what I went to say-

I fully understand what happened last week. And for that reason, I call for the immediate resignation of the Mayor.

A Mayor, who believes that it’s more important to let 9 klansman from Indiana speak on courthouse square than a citizen of Dayton who wanted to speak to the people who are supposed to work for the people of Dayton. But, you didn’t have three minutes to spare?

Sure you’ve got a rule.

Commissioner Fairchild, did I text you before the meeting, and did you know about it before Ms. Purple here told you that she was going to banish a speaker? This commission spent $650K on protecting the klan’s right to speak. You didn’t waste a minute before having the police haul me out.

Is that because you could spend that money with more of your demolition contractors that you have been so friendly with? You know the ones who gave you all money for your campaigns, and apparently won some contracts that they shouldn’t have because this commission didn’t do their jobs?

But enough about your culture of corruption.

We had a catastrophe last week. 400,000 people didn’t have water to flush their toilets- because you didn’t want to hear how you could have called the National Guard to bring you generators.

Of course, the difference here is, the National Guard wouldn’t cost you any money- and you couldn’t spend our tax dollars with your friends and family plan.

The National Guard could have also helped provide security for people who no longer had roofs over their heads- but stuff they wanted to protect and keep. But, since you have a looters mentality – it didn’t occur to you that the people you were elected to represent, might want their stuff protected.

The National Guard also could have erected tents, outside every home that was damaged, and provided labor to help clear debris and help people secure their belongings.

How do I know this? Because as a veteran, I know what soldiers do. I know that they’d rather serve here in their home- than over in a sandbox far away.

They were itching to go.

You were itching to award more demolition contracts.

And itching because, you were too stupid to manage this disaster appropriately and hadn’t had a shower.

The thing is- the waters back on- and you still smell bad.
Maybe it’s because you’ve been steering contracts and collecting campaign money in exchange for access for a long time.

The donor list for Issue 9 looks like a great place to start looking for who has supported this culture of corruption. The FBI has already started working their way through it. Vendor, vendor, large non-profit donor that wants to tear a hospital down, city hall staff, vendor… you get the drill.
Speaking of a hospital you let them tear down… it’s too bad you didn’t make them leave it for 2 years like we have to with public schools.  Because it would have been a great emergency shelter for all the people in nursing homes that were affected by this disaster. But, you don’t think creatively- or to help others. You just want to make sure your campaign coffers stay full – while you gave away the fairgrounds to the friends and family.

People kept saying where is the Mayor. They knew where the Trotwood Mayor was – she was out on the streets organizing folks.
You were hanging out with Mayor Pete’s husband raising money, walking in parades- you know- the la dee dah of a person just waiting for the cuffs to go on.
Do us all a favor. Just resign now. Take your city manager with you. Let’s get some people in here that can actually lead.

(this is about where I got cut off)

Oh- and btw- you didn’t have to let the KKK have their rally in the middle of downtown just because they wanted to- you could have put them somewhere where it wouldn’t interfere with EVERY BUSINESS DOWNTOWN. Island park would have been just fine- and a lot easier to create a safe space – and cheaper too.
Don’t tell me about the rules- the only ones you follow are the ones to shut up your critics and challengers.

And, to Commissioners Shaw and Joseph- if you didn’t know what Commissioner Williams and Mr. Winburn were doing, or how your mayor has been steering contracts- it’s because you weren’t doing your jobs either.

And, there were a few people who turned their speaking requests in late. One woman, who hadn’t seen the meeting last week, dared to stand up and say she’d turned hers in. Rashella Lavendar didn’t bother to ask her name, to see if it was even one of the late ones- or if she’d missed one- she just ignored her and moved on. Matt Joseph didn’t ask the police to escort her out. hmmmmm.

And we’ll never know if Rashella did her right or not. If I was on the commission, I would have made sure we knew why she wasn’t called. And if Rashella had screwed up- she’d be out of work too.

But, then again, I’d change the speaking rule and let you keep coming up all night long, because, I work for you. Not for the people who bought city hall.