Nerk Informer

I will be attending the Council meeting tonight. I missed last week’s School Board meeting because it was my daughter’s 10th birthday. Tonight, though, I will absolutely be attending and speaking. It will be – as mentioned before – the 7 year anniversary of the founding of the 99% of Newark and East Central Ohio which was established at the Gazebo. This will almost mark just over a year since the Mayor’s decision gave the green light to tearing down that structure irrespective of public will. So, when I attend tonight I plan on presenting the following questions for their consideration:

1. Did the private donors supporting the gazebo’s removal write checks to the City of Newark so that such could then be forwarded to Robertson Construction for the purpose of paying for the removal both of the gazebo and the concrete picnic table bases? If so, where is the public record of such transactions?

2. If a check wasn’t written to the City directly, then is there some public record of a financial transaction between the private donors and Robertson Construction considering that the property affected belonged to the people of Newark?

3. Did the private donors write any checks to the Community Improvement Corporation (the CIC), or the Newark Development Partners for the purpose of forwarding said payment to Robertson Construction? If so, is it possible that these donors were then able to claim such a contribution as a tax deduction?

4. Is it not true that the CIC and NDP receive federal grant dollars? Moreover, with a number of city officials sitting on as board members thereof, would it not likewise be the case that its decisions and financial transactions ought to be subject to public records requests? If this is the case, then wouldn’t it be incumbent upon these city officials to submit to the people a list of any and all private donors whose contributions may have influenced the decision to remove public property from the Square?

Here are this week’s documents:

This Week’s Available Minutes

Full Council

Finance

This Week’s Available Agendas

Full Council

Finance

Capital Improvements

Planning Commission (October 9th, no minutes yet available)

School Board (October 8th, Video)

Stay Tuned…