Mayor Powell ends year with a little dishonesty

Mayor Barb Bloes does all public business with her company, State Farm Insurance under the name “Barb Powell.” It’s my belief that this basic bit of dishonesty speaks to her general character and is also evident in the following story about what happened at the December 28, 2009 Sac City Council meeting. Because she seems to live her life in every other respect as “Barb Powell” it is TheSacNews.com’s editorial policy that she will be referred to as the name she puts on her State Farm Insurance business sign, her State Farm Insurance business car, and State Farm Insurance advertising. The public should be aware that when they buy insurance from “Barb Powell" she is the same person as the mayor of Sac City, “Barb Bloes” who is engaging in this attempted political spinning which I will now document for you.

Full Disclosure: Sac City Mayor Barb Bloes, A.K.A Barb Powell is married to my estranged father.

Here’s what happened.

On March 24, 2008, Sac City Mayor Barb Powell changed the “Public Forum” portion of the Sac City Council meetings into the “Council Forum” thus excluding by name, the public from participating in the portion of the meeting where future topics for discussion are suggested. Occasionally the Mayor lets certain people, (primarily friends of hers,) participate in the Council Forum, but for the most part it is now only for the Council.

She denies that the public forum is gone, (in spite of the fact that you can just go look at any agenda prior to March 24 and see that there is a public forum in place, and then replaced on every agenda thereafter with the “Council Forum.”)

Apparently the fact that she has done away with the public forum is bothering her, because right after she called the December 28, 2009 Sac City Council meeting to order, before the council even approved the agenda, she started using the City Council meeting to tell me (Curtis Bloes) personally that she doesn’t have to include a public forum during the meeting at all, and then waved some documentation around from the Region XII Council of Governments as proof.

She continued to tell those gathered that in fact the “Citizen’s Opportunity to Address the Council” is now the Public Forum. In fact, the Mayor is lying. The “Citizen’s Opportunity to Address the Council” existed prior March 24, 2008. The only thing that is different from prior to March 24, 2008 is that the Public Forum is now gone. She is aware of the change because at the time her explanation was that they just, “Changed a little wording.”

I find it interesting that Mayor Barb Powell insists at the beginning of every single City Council meeting that the public is welcome to comment whenever they choose, but then continues to submit to the Council an agenda that purposefully excludes the public from participating in the forum at the end of the meeting.

The December 28, 2009 discussion itself took place in an illegal manner, being both not posted on the agenda, (I guess the Mayor didn’t want the public to know what she intended to discuss at the meeting,) and before the approval of the agenda. This means the Sac City Mayor Barb Powell may be in violation of Iowa’s open meeting laws. Because she’s the Mayor, it’s unlikely that the Sac City Council will address this breach of Iowa law in open meeting at any future date. Ironically, the “Citizen’s Opportunity to Address the Council” which she wrongly insists is now the “Public Forum” is where she could have legally discussed this topic, since it didn’t require that a decision on the City Council’s part be made.

Here is a link to the Sac City Government’s website where they store for the public all of the agendas and minutes of the Sac City Council meetings going back to 2006.
http://cityofsaccity.org/page1.asp
You can see for yourself that Mayor Powell got rid of the Public Forum on March 24, 2009.

There may be some form of Letter to the Editor of the Sac Sun or some other form of rare communication from the Mayor to the public that addresses this topic. Speaking directly to the Mayor, Ms. Powell; if you DO write a letter to the editor, I wouldn’t include your justification that the “Address” portion of the meeting is that same as the “Forum” at the end of the meeting. Those of us that are paying attention know better. Better to stick with the “I don’t have to have a Public Forum” argument. At least it’s honest.

By the way, this topic originally came to light the week I was establishing that the Sac City Council does not discuss the hundreds, (thousands?) of dollars in backdoor payments they receive out of the general fund, as well as the many other payments in need of explanation that the City makes every week. More on that at a future date.






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