The St. Joseph County Council, under the leadership of democrat Council President, Rafael Morton, and lying side-kick, democrat Diana Hess (who also happens to be the Chairwoman for the St. Joseph County democrat party), have squandered nearly $70,000 of taxpayer money apparently trying to preserve democrat super-majority control of the St. Joseph County Council. Further, this shameful expenditure is only through the end of the 2021 calendar year. The profligate spending has continued unabated into 2022, with no end in sight.
The Council spent this money on a 6-3 party-line approval – all the democrats voted for the boondoggle and all the Republicans voted against it in order to conserve taxpayer money. These herculean expenditures dwarfed the $36,000 amount that had apparently been budgeted by the County Council democrats for a Public Affairs campaign through a law firm to push for gerrymandered districts. The county then hid what exactly that money was spent on. The Council Democrats are now using that same law firm and more taxpayer money to sue the County Commissioners to dispute the County Commissioner drawn Commissioner districts – which comport with Indiana statutes.
County residents no doubt recall that these same democrat Council members – all 6 of them (Rafael Morton, Diana Hiss, Joe Canarecci, Mark Catanzarite, Bobby Kruszynski, and Corey Noland), voted to give themselves a herculean raise just 3 short months ago. The Council voted not once, but twice, to give themselves a 56% pay raise beginning in 2022. The second vote was necessary because the County Commissioners vetoed the annual budget, primarily due to the obscene raise the Council members inserted in the budget for themselves. The County’s sheriff deputies and other first responders did not receive 56% raises. Neither did the workers in the County Clerk’s office.
Voters and taxpayers deserve a big explanation from our County Council democrats for these and other outrageous, greedy and avaricious actions. The local legacy media agrees, at least in part, with the staff of the Real News Michiana concerning the borderline immoral raises that the County Council democrats gave to themselves. The editorial board of the South Bend Tribune recently stated, “any official who supports such eyebrow-raising numbers should explain to the public why it’s appropriate.”
It doesn’t happen often, but Real News Michiana agrees with the Tribune. However, RNM goes even further to demand County Council democrats pay the ongoing and outrageous legal bills that are being incurred to further their own political goals rather than by plundering local taxpayers.
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No one would know the position of the South Bend Tribune editorial board as no one reads that biased piece of schlock “journalism” any longer. So many subscribers have fired the dishonest Democrat broadsheet that they are dropping the Saturday edition, which was the only day out of 7 that had any value, and it typically ran 10 pages in length with 5 or 6 being advertising. I’m sure Gannett/USA Today can put them back on course to profitability.