Thanking my supporters, and moving forward
Printed in the Bloomington Herald-Times, November 6, 2015 (Comments)
To the Editor:
I want to express my sincere appreciation for everyone who supported me and voted for me. I cannot name everyone, but you know who you are. Thank you so much.
While I did not get as many votes as I would have liked, 3.3% of voters wrote in a name that was not on the ballot. Thank you.
I raised many issues throughout the campaign. One issue the next mayor and council should address is transparency. First, no government meeting should take place before 5:30 p.m. while most people are at work. While city government is far better than county government in this regard, this needs to change.
Second, the mayor should be completely open with how much money and property is confiscated annually via civil asset forfeiture, and the city council should demand it. We also need a full review to ensure no one who has not been convicted of a crime loses his money or property permanently.
Finally, the idea that financial records that were public record suddenly became "investigatory records" in 2014 is absurd. The nature of the records did not change because someone was suspected of theft. John Hamilton should reject Mark Kruzan's policy of secrecy.