I was responding to an overall increase in divisiveness on council and in town over the last year or so as illustrated in item 14 and the interaction between the Councilmembers. This is my personal opinion and does not reflect the position of the Desert Trumpet.
Councilmember Ramirez, who was elected in November, is still learning that she’s not just on Facebook anymore. Unsubstantiated allegations from the dais carry more weight than what she used to do on social media and she lobbed a few of them at this meeting.
City Manager Stone James is having difficulty staying quiet on the Ofland litigation and is attacking residents instead of focusing on the merits of the case. This builds on a history of attacking residents who disagree with his positions — in an email we obtained, he lauds the “right kind of morality” (approx quote) and I guess many if us don’t meet that standard. While we had disagreements with our prior City Manager Frank Luckino, to our knowledge Frank never attacked the residents as Stone feels entitled to do.
All of this, in addition to other personal attacks that I was privy to recently, resulted in a rather angry public comment, which is floating around social media if you want the full 🤯.
Speaking of conflicts of interest, shouldn't town official members who are members of the Ministerial Association recuse themselves when giving away a significant number of taxpayer dollars ?? by doing so, MY tax dollars are used to support beliefs that i do not support and is a conflict of goverment and religion.
The only current Councilmember on the Ministerial Association is McArthur Wright who is President of the Association. And yes, considerable latitude is given to organizations who are part of the Ministerial Association. However, Reach Out Morongo Basin was founded by the Ministerial Association many many years ago, in the 1990’s, and the Association has little direct involvement now as far as I know.
What was Item 14? If you’re going to mention clash in the order at least give s a brief explanation!’
Or did I miss it?
affordable housing update
I was responding to an overall increase in divisiveness on council and in town over the last year or so as illustrated in item 14 and the interaction between the Councilmembers. This is my personal opinion and does not reflect the position of the Desert Trumpet.
Councilmember Ramirez, who was elected in November, is still learning that she’s not just on Facebook anymore. Unsubstantiated allegations from the dais carry more weight than what she used to do on social media and she lobbed a few of them at this meeting.
City Manager Stone James is having difficulty staying quiet on the Ofland litigation and is attacking residents instead of focusing on the merits of the case. This builds on a history of attacking residents who disagree with his positions — in an email we obtained, he lauds the “right kind of morality” (approx quote) and I guess many if us don’t meet that standard. While we had disagreements with our prior City Manager Frank Luckino, to our knowledge Frank never attacked the residents as Stone feels entitled to do.
All of this, in addition to other personal attacks that I was privy to recently, resulted in a rather angry public comment, which is floating around social media if you want the full 🤯.
I don’t have enough back story on this, sorry, and I don’t know what item 14 is.
Speaking of conflicts of interest, shouldn't town official members who are members of the Ministerial Association recuse themselves when giving away a significant number of taxpayer dollars ?? by doing so, MY tax dollars are used to support beliefs that i do not support and is a conflict of goverment and religion.
The only current Councilmember on the Ministerial Association is McArthur Wright who is President of the Association. And yes, considerable latitude is given to organizations who are part of the Ministerial Association. However, Reach Out Morongo Basin was founded by the Ministerial Association many many years ago, in the 1990’s, and the Association has little direct involvement now as far as I know.