Dalmation,

I know I was going to go away and I will. But I hear you gave great speech you gave last Thursday at the commission meeting. My only question is..who wrote it out for you? Was it Bruce, Eric Maxwell? It could not have been Frady or Horgan, they do not have sufficient grasp of the issues. You back the sheriff and that is fine, but don't end up as a shill for Maxwell and company. Come on you can do better than that.

By the way, do you think the sheriff breathed a sigh of relief when the accountant could not testify? The cat, the results of the audit, are not out of the bag. Too bad.

Too bad for whom?
Too bad for Linda? I heard she ran out of the courtroom after being chastised by Judge Ison....
Or, too bad for Greg when the Judge ruled against him?

I say too bad that the residents of Fayette County still have to endure Dunn & Wells until Jan. 2007!

By the way, do you think the sheriff breathed a sigh of relief when the accountant could not testify? The cat, the results of the audit, are not out of the bag. Too bad.

This sort of smarmy innuendo is your trademark, I see, and I'm sure it's cost you more credibility than you know.

Let's address this cat in the bag which had the sheriff holding his breath, shall we?

If you people had the slightest thing to gain from having this forensic accountant testify, why didn't you put her name on the witness list? It wasn't there, and that's why the judge didn't allow her to testify. My guess is your folks had no intention of calling this CPA because she could say nothing in the world to help your case. Then a certain newspaperman alerted the populace to the existence of the expensive audit report and they had to call her.

Unfortunately for your side, the judge asked what she was to testify about. Was she going to let a cat out of the bag to the distress of the sheriff as you imply? Well no, not according to the commission's attorney. She was going to testify to the relevant procedures should the judge rule that purchasing must be done Greg Dunn's way. Pretty lame save there if you ask me, but I know your people had to put her up there for something. I submit that you and yours were the ones who breathed a sigh of relief when she couldn't testify because her name wasn't on the witness list.

For a long time now you've pedantically intoned that all of our problems will go away if the sheriff will only obey the law. Well, we have a ruling on what the law is now. Will Greg Dunn obey it?

I'll save for another day the rant about how Greg Dunn has spent years telling us he had no access to sheriff's records and was forced to admit on the stand that in fact he had free access to the records for years and took full advantage of it.

Well,

I can say this. If the auditor was not on the list, then that was a major tactical blunder. You make a mistake and you pay for it.

You ask if Dunn will obey the law? Why would he not. It is very clear now and there is no ambiguity for anyone.

Take your shots. I have thick skin.

The law has been around long enough for all to know and fully understand. Perhaps Greg should consider changing his representation.

Maybe they assume that if there'd been a cat to be let out of a bag, that "cat" would have been on the witness list.

Natural: You should be ashamed

Not having posted in quite some time, I wanted to voice my support of the fine character of Jack Smith and to encourage people to be positive and not to attack. I have only met him a couple of times, but my understanding is that he has a good reputation and that he is a fine man. I do not like the post I saw that attacked him. It was a negative post in response to something that supported Mr. Smith and SAID NOTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT ANYONE. I hope that Mr. Smith does not allow his campaign to deteriorate to the level of people like “The Natural.” The fact that your candidates that you support allow you to continue with these postings casts a bad reflection on them as well.

Mrs. Fran Sheldon

Mrs. Sheldon,

If you felt though that was an attack on Mr. Smith then I apologize to you. However, I was responding to a previous post that said that Mr.Smith had no connections with developers. I merely pointed out that this statement was in error. Mr. Smith does have ties to developers by virtue of his position on the Development Authority Board. It was not an attack, but an assumption that Mr. Smith will get monies from developers and that his late entry into this race is reflective of the desire of others to replace the incumbent more than Jack's desire to serve. You have "only met him a couple of times" and formed your opinion. I have met him, engaged him in conversation, actually worked with him in various capacities. I would agree that he is a fine man. I never said anything to the contrary. My concern is that he is being misled in his candidacy by those who care less for Jack's reputation than they do their own objectives.

I have made many postings on many subjects here. This one happened to be about those who qualified in a specific race. I have my own way of thinking and I am neither controlled, nor in communication with the parties involved in these postings. My opinions are my own.

I did not impugn Mr. Smith's integrity, work ethic, business practices or personally in anyway and would not do so.

And you have never met Bruce Jordan, but you subject us to your opinion of him until our eyes bleed from reading it.

I suppose the rules are different for royalty.

It really was a great speech. I wrote it personally. This is no time for personal attacks. I have not stooped down to that level, nor should you. This is a time for adults to realize that this is a childish way for the county commission to behave. Why change something that has worked for decades just to prove that you can. It has cost us hundredsx of thousands of dollars that could have been better spent on other things to enhance our community.

It is time for this to end. I am sure that there is room for both sides to move in order to resolve it.

It may be good legal advice to keep this information secret, but it is certainly poor political advice for Greg, Linda and Peter. I really feel for Peter, he is going to feel awfully lonely in 2007 and 2008. It is time for him to reach out and start to make some new friends.

We will wait until July for me to say "I told you so."

If what I said was taken as a personal attack, I am sorry.

Your a smart guy from all I have heard. You and I both know that it is not "hundreds of thousands of dollars" spent on this. Now that is simply not true. Please stop perpetuating that myth. It may be up to about $100k or so, but that is it, split half and half between the commission and the sheriff's attorney.
I do not know what is going on in the court, I am guessing you are there, at least part of the time. If the answer from the sheriff's side is, "it is how we have always done it" I got to say that is very weak. Things change, requirements change, scrutiny of what our government officials do is necessary in this day and time. I guess where we differ is that you believe that the way things were done in the '70's is still ok. Unfortunately we live in a vastly different world today and the sheriff has to catch up. The rules are clear, and the sheriff, like everybody else, has to follow them.

We shall see how this all plays out (too bad I will not be able to participate) in July.

Come one, don't perpetuate for one minute that this is not going to cost the taxpayers of Fayette County almost a quarter Million dollars before this is all over. Not just this one case, but all of the litigation involving the Commission and the Sheriff. Since the Commission has hired a Forensic Accountant, the Sheriff will certainly hire one to rebut any testimony of the first. Cha Ching!!!!

If Chairman Dunn had not started this feud to start with, we would not be here.

Can't wait until July.

The definition is: A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace. How exactly have I met this definition? I am not a leader of anyone but my own conscience. I submit facts, verifiable and supportable. You get emotional because you disagree and/or it under cuts your position.

Admittedly, you try to use it as a verb, but we will let that pass. Appeal to the emotions and prejudices of people...you mean like throwing out a number like $250,000.00 will be spent like it is a fact and a foregone conclusion. Getting people aroused against spending a fictious dollar figure with no basis in fact? You either did not see or chose to ignore the facts in my previous post. The total expenditures for all the litigation involving the county and the sheriff to date is just over $100,000 dollars split evenly between the county legal costs and the amount paid to the sheriff's attorney. That is public record, check it out.
Not $250,000, and certainly not $500,000 as some have suggested.

For the last time, read slowly if you must, Dunn did not start this.
The sheriff started this entire cascade of events because he chose to thumb his nose at the commission by not jailing a DUI offender in retaliation for a supposed sub at budget time. Get your facts straight. Everything else that has come about has been as a result of, and subsequent to those two events. If you chose to ignore this fact then there is no reconciling our positions. It is as simple as that. Dalmation, your a smart guy, re-evaluate things.

Ok, so demagogue is a noun. Let me set it straight, "Don't be a demogogue."

I do not have a degree in the english language or journalism (as you do), so please forgive me if my grammer is not perfect. It is a shame that more of us do not have a better command of our language in this day in time. However; I think that I do an above average job of it. I am certainly above the median of our population.

Wouldn't you agree?

As for the issue, I still believe that Chairman Greg is pounding his chest throughout all of this just to prove who has the most power. It was a poor political move when all is said and done.

I hope Greg and Linda enjoy their last months in the seat, and as I said earlier, it is time for Peter to start finding som mew friends or he will be feeling really lonely in 2007 and 2008.

Can't wait until July!

You said "The total expenditures for all the litigation involving the county and the sheriff to date is just over $100,000 dollars split evenly between the county legal costs and the amount paid to the sheriff's attorney. That is public record, check it out." I'd like to check it out. Has it been made public somewhere, or do you mean it's a public record that I can get through an open records request? If it's not been made public, how did you come up with the figure?

I have been combing through the attorney invoices a few hours here and there. Should have a report ready by next week.

In any case, this is one open records request the county granted, for what it's worth.

John Munford--- What are the total yearly lawyer fees that we pay as County Taxpayers on both sides with the Sheriff and the Commissioners and everything ?

Hopefully he's off writing a story about the Dunn/Sheriff case which ended a short time ago.

--

That is what I did.

Was it Gregg? Mark P? The 6th commissioner himself?

Demogogue is a noun

Grammar lessons from the poster who brings us these pearls:

But I hear you gave great speech you gave last Thursday

If you chose to ignore this fact then there is no reconciling

your a smart guy

so that they developers can take over

And that's just today!

When all else fails....distract from the issue by attacking the source. Very Clintonesque of you Windy. And you are correct. There are times when my proof reading could improve. But again, facts are facts.

When all else fails....distract from the issue

Yes! That's what I thought when I saw you do it.

I left some off:

I got to say that is very weak.

If you felt though that was an attack

C'mon Natural, you're a dirty gal with dirty postings. You finally admit that this all about "the Sheriff did it first" and that this all about a power struggle. Whoops--- so much for an issues based campaign.

Joey,

You sure do read into things. What I said was that this entire chain of events started with those two situations. The county was forced to sue the sheriff over it. Everything else has been instigated by the sheriff. The only retaliation that has ever occurred here has been from the sheriff's side of the issue.

Let's make this simple for you. The sheriff takes a DUI offender arrested by a marshal into the jail. No problem, no suit. How is that hard to understand? The sheriff does not build an unapproved, uninspected quoset hut on county property. County does not have to take it down (because it is not there) and the sheriff does not have to sue to keep it (because it is not there).

Sheriff complies with the same rules and regulations that all other departments and constitutional officers must comply with. No court dates, no lawyers, no tax dollars spent. You got it? How is that a power struggle? Sheriff complies with the law...problem goes away.
County does business as usual.

Why is it that my position is "dirty" just because it is in opposition to yours?

We do agree that these issues need to go away before the county is given to developers a couple of thousand acres at a time, by those who would like to be on the commission. That is the real campaign issue here. If you like living in this county you would be more worried about that than anything else.

Janet
Could you ask the king why his overstaffed private police force is no longer out enforcing the numerous sign violations in the county? What do they do all day? The only time I see them is parked at a fast food place.

SEE THE BLOG FOR DETAILS.