In his letter to The Explorer, Feb. 27, OV neighbor Phil Gibbs raises an interesting question.
One correction for Phil. As I noted yesterday, the town's bill for legal fees from an outside law firm pertaining to the LOVE Blog issue escalated from $115.80 to $1452.60. One might have thought the Pima County Attorney's office could have rendered the same advice for nothing. Oh well. Maybe next time.
Art
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At least OV can’t be accused of consistency
At an Oro Valley Town Council special session, Mayor Paul Loomis said, “Town policy is to investigate all complaints that are brought forth.”
OV1st has lodged numerous complaints with the town and the council and with no action being taken. June 6, 2007, the group sent a letter to the mayor with copies to the council requesting that Vestar Corp., be required to make a presentation to the town on the status of the Oro Valley Marketplace. Nothing was done. At least the Mayor and council cannot be accused of consistency.
The complaint about the L.O.V.E. blog was lodged by one citizen (with connections to council member Parish) and it was promptly acted upon. Regarding the $115.80 paid to outside council for legal advice, I believe the town attorney should reimburse the town for this expense. With all of the lawyers on the town payroll, there was no one that could answer the question?
Phil Gibbs
Oro Valley
6 comments:
Maybe we should ask the town to investigate again.
Nah, why bother.
Vestar is considered an "untouchable" by Mayor Loomis and his clan of looney tunes.
Art,
I hope you write a letter to the Explorer to correct the cost of the legal advice.
It's pretty outrageous that we are paying four or five lawyers a full-time salary plus benefits, and none of them could advise our well-paid constituent services coordinator to advise the Monrads that yes, the First Amendment applies in Oro Valley.
At the same time, they can ignore a perfectly legitimate inquiry into the status of compliance with a Town contract. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that at least 10 Vestar employees and spouses have contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to Parish's campaign. If so, Vestar obviously thinks they'll continue to have a good investment in Parish, and it's our job to deprive them of it by voting him out of office.
Maybe we should send the bill to Terry Parish... I see that he has so much "extra" campaign money! Since this was obviously initiated by Parish, why don't we make Parish responsible for the cost?
Oro Valley Mom and all other LOVE Bloggers:
Let's clear the air on this "incident" which was formally settled on 2/2/08.
Twink Monrad
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The complete 2/2/08 e-mail:
Dear Mr. Segal,
Thank you for your kind reply.
1) Due to the fact that LOVE is indeed a political committee that does not need to register as such and does not need to file an exemption, this subject is now closed in my opinion. I do not wish to debate this issue with you but I am of the opinion that you have omitted this fact for the citizens of Oro Valley to know and to understand that LOVE is a political committee.
2) I filed a request for the outside legal opinion through the appropriate REQUEST FOR RECORDS procedure and received the documents on 1/31/08. The outside legal opinion was transmitted to me under the cover of Mr. Rosen's letter to Mr. Bolick. I trust that this properly answers your concern that I indeed received both of these public information documents through proper means.
I sent my December 9, 2007 inquiry e-mail to the Town Clerk of my own volition without discussion with any other person or party; nor my wife Twink. (You properly noted that my e-mail was signed by me and not by the two of us.)
I have noted that the outside legal opinion did not take into account web site development costs contributed by Mr. Furash but I now consider this point moot.
My initial inquiry (not complaint) and the Town's response was, in my opinion, never a free speech issue but an appropriate review of compliance with Arizona Revised Statutes - Title 16 Chapter 6 Campaign Contributions and Expenses:16-901 through 16-925. I trust that the LOVE bloggers will take the opportunity to read this statute. Please see http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=16 .
i do not wish to become a "blogger" but thank you for your invitation. I do find it very interesting that a number of the LOVE bloggers are jumping to incorrect conclusions; however, that is human nature.
I am a native of Tucson, have been a resident of Oro Valley since June 1976 and will continue to be involved as an interested citizen. I am a recently retired consulting electrical engineer and am not in the employ of anyone.
In closing, my inquiry was not meant to be malicious in any manner but was based on my long standing experience in the operations of political committees under the rule of law.
You have my permission to use any or all of the above material to "clear the air" on this issue and move forward for the betterment of Oro Valley.
I have copied the Arizona Daily Star reporter Ms. Lourdes Medrano for her reference. I do not believe that additional press will be of any benefit; however, that is for others to determine.
Best regards,
Larry Monrad
Clarification:
My comment was not deleted. A duplicate post of my comment was deleted.
Twink Monrad
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