Robert Grey never saw coming when it got into the race as he failed to understand the real politics of Richmond. Poor Grey, he forgot the basic rules of Richmond politics. The reason the McCain-Gilmore-Pantele forces are united to stop Dwight Jones, and why Robert Grey has been roped into being part of the stop-Jones coalition.
By Paul Goldman, for the blog
Poor Robert Grey, he never saw it coming, neither did his mother, a super lady, such a terrific person and as I have said, that is one reason we need a Women's Monument to Richmond's women on Monument Avenue, to recognize the great contributions of the city's women. But in Richmond, is it really a surprise that I have gotten more calls from around the country from people who read about my proposal than from women in Richmond !
Robert Grey just never got it. As I I said in my endorsement of Dwight Jones, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the basic laws of political physics here in Richmond. Or if you prefer, Bob Dylan said that you didn't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing.
How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?
Robert Grey found out the answer this morning.
Two years ago, the RTD thought Bill Pantele's record and involvements were of such little moment that they urged voters to kick him off City Council. That's right: they backed his opponent saying that Bill didn't get it and his performance didn't merit your vote. They urged voters to vote for the proverbial anyone-but-Pantele candidate, a virtual unknown.
But back then, Bill had not, as Francis Ford Coppola might have said, "made his bones" with those that Dr. Crupi discussed in his report.
Remember the great opening scene in Godfather 1, when we are first introduced to Brando's character and Tom Hagen? It is in many respects, the most important scene in the movie. The undertaker had come to seek the help and blessing of the Godfather.
What a scene.
But to be fair to Bill, he has only done in the last few years what the legendary henchman of Boss Tweed's gang, George Washington Plunkett, predicted would happen.
Bill understood what Robert did not.
So now, Robert Grey, as predicted here, has been relegated to the role he has been chosen to take, as Bill Pantele's tag-team Tonto, assigned this role in the anti-Jones tag team by the usual suspects.
So it comes as no surprise to me that in entire RTD editorial endorsing Bill, THEY DO NOT MENTION ONE ACHIEVEMENT OF HIS.
NOT ONE!
They do not mention a single problem he has solved.
They say that it is "clear to us that Pantele is best suited to become a problem-solving mayor."
Yet the RTD says: "Pantele's tenure on the council means he already has identified the problems facing Richmond -- and they are legion -- and knows which lever to pull (or whom to call) to start making fixes. He recognizes the city's strengths and how to build on them." .
Say what? If the problems are legion, and Bill has been on City Council for 7 years, and yet the RTD can not cite a single achievement in solving any of these problems, what is really going on here?
"We believe Pantele can advance Wilder's call to treat taxpayers' money with more respect" says the RTD.
Say what? According to the Mayor, Mr. Pantele has been the most wasteful city councilman of them all! According to the Mayor, because of Bill's failure to follow the law, the Mayor says we have a $6 MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT in the city budget!
So how can Bill "advance Wilder's call" when Wilder is saying that Bill is the reason we are going backward!?
But the most amazing RTD statement is this one: "Pantele has battled often with Wilder, which proves he can play in the big leagues."
Say what?
This is one for the record books. Why would bickering with Doug Wilder qualify anyone for the big leagues whatever that is suppose to mean.
SO WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE?
Since the RTD seems to feel that Doug Wilder can help define the answer, let me leave you with one of the Mayor's favorite political sayings [cleaned-up], which I am quite sure Bill Pantele has heard before:
Even Ray Charles can see what his really happening here.
Because I like Robert and so greatly respect his mother Barbara, it does sadden me to know that they probably didn't see it until they read this morning's RTD editorial.
But he is stuck now, knowing that he is being used by the McCain-Gilmore-Pantele forces to stop Dwight Jones from becoming the Mayor.
Robert has a lot to offer Richmond, and hopefully he will get his chance in the future.
But he has now learned the brutal truth at the political physics of Richmond and why some of us have been working so hard for years to change it.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Goldman to shake-up Mayor's race tomorrow, October 21, with major announcement
With two weeks to ago, it is now game time.
Date: Tuesday, October 21
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: 9th Street entrance to City Hall.
Date: Tuesday, October 21
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: 9th Street entrance to City Hall.
Richmond faces growing fiscal crisis as City Hall, City Council, media fiddle
Goldman for Mayor - 20 October 2008 - For Immediate Release - 804-833-6313
Whereas Emperor Nero when you need him?
"The failure of the Wilder-led Administration and the Pantele-led Council to be straight with the people of Richmond about their failed budget and financial policies is one thing: but the failure of the local media to understand the importance of these matters as to their impact on the next Mayor is quite another."
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, said today that "it is a sad day for Richmond when George Bush "gets it" and Mayor Wilder, City Council President Pantele, and the local media don't."
"Last week, the city finance director conceded that Richmond has to be prepared to deal with what could be it's biggest budget and financial mess in memory: and yet, neither the Mayor, the head of City Council, indeed the Council itself, not to mention the local media or business community, show any real urgency in dealing with this growing crisis, nor seem to truly understand the potential problem that could be facing the most vulnerable city residents as a winter recession approaches."
"From the local campaign finance reports, it is clear who has pledged to help make sure key private, special interests get a piece of the public treasury.
But who is going to look out for the public interest and insure that there is a level playing field in Richmond, who is going to protect the public treasury during a time when some of the toughest budget and fiscal decisions, along with social policy decisions, will almost surely have to be made?"
Whereas Emperor Nero when you need him?
"The failure of the Wilder-led Administration and the Pantele-led Council to be straight with the people of Richmond about their failed budget and financial policies is one thing: but the failure of the local media to understand the importance of these matters as to their impact on the next Mayor is quite another."
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, said today that "it is a sad day for Richmond when George Bush "gets it" and Mayor Wilder, City Council President Pantele, and the local media don't."
"Last week, the city finance director conceded that Richmond has to be prepared to deal with what could be it's biggest budget and financial mess in memory: and yet, neither the Mayor, the head of City Council, indeed the Council itself, not to mention the local media or business community, show any real urgency in dealing with this growing crisis, nor seem to truly understand the potential problem that could be facing the most vulnerable city residents as a winter recession approaches."
"From the local campaign finance reports, it is clear who has pledged to help make sure key private, special interests get a piece of the public treasury.
But who is going to look out for the public interest and insure that there is a level playing field in Richmond, who is going to protect the public treasury during a time when some of the toughest budget and fiscal decisions, along with social policy decisions, will almost surely have to be made?"
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Did Grey, Pantele make private promise to bailout Arts Center, hide fiscal truth, to gain support for their campaigns?
Occasional Column: By pure luck, we now understand what had previously been a major hidden factor in the funding and policy aspects of the Mayoral campaigns of Robert Grey and Bill Pantele.
By Paul Goldman, for the blog
Call me slow, real slow even. The hidden truth didn't hit me until last Tuesday night, as I was standing there on the stage for the last mayoral debate, with myself in the middle, Robert Grey to my extreme left and Bill Pantele to my extreme right.
Like so much else in politics, there was nothing really hidden about it, the self-evident was always right there for all the world to see. Truth is, something Robert and Bill said a few weeks ago had been puzzling me, and had popped into my mind on occasion while jogging. It was a small thing - part an aside, part an inflection - but it struck me that both of them were on the same page the same way in a way that made it seem they both had thought long and hard about it.
But why would they? Again, this puzzling thing had entered my brain, rattled around while I was running in circles around Mary Munford School, and then had receded from the ole frontal lobe.
In all likelihood, I never would have gone back to it had something not occurred Tuesday night that instantly got me thinking right then and there about the puzzle: then, just like that, it was as Tom Cruise might say, crystal clear.
One thing I have learned in politics over the years: listen to what your opponents are saying, for they often reveal more than they realize if you pay attention to the time, place and context.
So there I was, participating in the Virginia Historical Society debate, having just provided some honest and accurate factual data about my role in exposing the flaws in the failed $110 million dollar Center Stage project and how the City of the Future plan that I had helped develop - praised by Grey and Pantele I might add - showed the way to how to modernize the Carpenter Center in a fiscally responsible manner, an approach likewise adopted by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele more than a year later. On this particular question, I was the first-up to bat, and my answer was basically the same as it had been at other times over the course of the campaign, this was not a new question in that regard.
Having finished my answer, Dwight Jones went next and the Richmond lawmaker basically gave his usual answer to the question in the allotted 90 seconds.
So I was thinking, "well, this is just going to be the usual round of answers to this usual question, new to this particular audience perhaps but old hat to the mayoral candidates."
Robert Grey was up third, and I was standing there, my mind actually running through his usual pitch. where he uses a clever tactic that Obama's uses and that I have learned to use listening to Senator Obama who is very effective in that regard in my view.
Robert usually praises me for having come up with the City of the Future plan - which as I say is a good tactic since it makes him look above politics and very sincere to the audience - and thus sets-up everyone for his punch line when he says that of all the City of the Future projects, he led the charge on the one project that actually has a firm finish date, the modernized Carpenter Center to open as the Center Stage project next year. This is his way of making himself into the can-do guy.
Again, it is a good debate tactic, Senator Obama is the master of it, and I have learned from him, having praised Robert and Bill and Dwight at different forums as prelude to discussing a certain subject matter. And I have meant it, since all these guys have good things they have done over the years.
So like I say, my mind was ready for Robert to do his thing.
But last Tuesday night, Robert Grey suddenly went in another direction, and it caught me by surprise as I was standing there, listening to his answer to the Arts Center question. As I say, I was slow to pick-up on it since at the time, my thought was: "Gee, this is not Robert's usual opening lines in this area, so I wonder how he will get to it at the close." I fully expected he would.
That is to say, I figured Robert would make the usual pitch just in a different order.
Nada: Not to be. He didn't just start in a different direction, he was determined to go in a different direction.
As I wrote yesterday, he suggested I had some bad motivations in my taking the lead in exposing the the fiscal irresponsibility and fiscal flaws of the $100 million failed Arts Project that had led to that city auditor's report of $100's of thousands of dollars in unjustified expense reimbursements. He didn't disagree with what I had found, for how could he: The City Auditor agreed with my premise that much money had indeed been wrongfully or wastefully spent.
So instead, Robert went for the false personal attack on me, claiming falsely that I had held up good people to intentional ridicule for no good reason.
"Interesting" I thought, I remember looking out at the audience, the glare from the lights making me squint a little. This was, to be a sure, a very pro-arts audience, and so my initial reaction was that Grey had calculated that he wanted to slam me to this group, to make it seem that somehow I had attacked pro-arts folks personally.
In this format, there is no rebuttal as there was at the TJ debate. Thus, my having gone first, this gave Robert a clear shot since he was following me. I had seen him do this before, usually to Delegate Jones.
I wasn't overjoyed with the situation, but I knew the audience was a lot smarter than Robert did. So I was amused really.
Then came City Council President Pantele. Robert at least had a certain modulation to his false attacks. But not Bill, he pandered unbelievably, making it sound as if I had called the arts folks everything but a child of God: Bill was way over top, telling the arts folks that what I had done was beyond the pale, the worst thing he had ever witnessed, the biggest injustice since he had witnessed in his time on Earth, or at least close to it by Richmond standards. Bill wanted to take me to the Tower, along with Saint Thomas More and Anne Boleyn.
Off with his head!
I asked myself: What would they take this tactic at this time and place on this particular question? It seemed so out of sync with what they said on it a month ago.
That is to say: Why did they feel compelled to give such a negative, personal attack answer on Tuesday when they had not done that in all the months previous?
So it got me thinking, and then after Lawrence Williams had his turn at bat, the moderator asked a follow-up question that crystallized my thinking: He asked each candidate whether as Mayor, he would insist on a full accounting on all the monies that have gone into the project, since public funds comprise far more than 50% of the mix, that is to say by any standard, it is a mostly public project.
Dwight and I said yes, that when you have a project of this nature, the public is entitled to know all the fiscal facts, that is the normal course of things. Or to use the current phrase, full transparency.
This was a no-brainer really.
Yet Robert and Bill refused: They said the public was not entitled to all the fiscal facts. For example, the public was not entitled per se to know the donor of private money to the project, even though that person or organization contributing the money might also be seeking the assistance of the Mayor and/or City Council on a matter worth millions to that person or group.
Then it hit me: Of Course!. How dense of me!
Robert and Bill had been making private assurances to key big financial players in Richmond to get them to back them for Mayor.
And then it hit me further: Given the current economic and financial situation facing the City and the nation, the Arts Center is likely to need the city to use public funds to bail them out in order to allow the Arts Center backers to receive certain special privileges worth millions to the backers, to cover an operating deficit, to keep certain monies flowing to certain entities, and perhaps for other costs related to building and operating the Arts Center.
"But of course!" I told myself.
Why didn't I see this weeks ago?
The connection between the current situation in the economy and Wall Street relative to the Arts Center had not hit me until that moment.
Think about it: Assuming what we are seeing everyday in the newspapers turns out to be even half true, is this really the best time to be opening a new Arts Center?
As I have been saying for months now, Mr. Pantele and Mr. Wilder have created a fiscal mess in Richmond, spending more than the people could afford. Mr. Grey backs the fiscally irresponsible Wilder budget.
So then I got to thinking and asking people about some things relative to the Arts Center funding. And as it turns out, a close reading of the documents relating to the city's commitment to the various financial issues involved with the Arts Center over the years - such promises agreed to do in all particulars by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele - reveals some interesting details about how much the public is being asked to underwrite what was sold as a private project, not a publicly-funded one.
There was a time with the RTD and Style and the Richmond Free Press actually cared about making sure the public knew the facts: and that was when I was the person leading the effort to get the public these facts for the first time, as the City Finance Director admitted.
But since I left, there has been almost no real reporting on the issue of how much public money has been spent, and how much public money has now been promised, on this issue.
AND FOR GOOD REASON PERHAPS.
I dare anyone to do the homework. I dare anyone to think again about the operating bailout given to the Arts Center by the City government, what they call a subsidy, but what is actually a bailout since the Arts Center said it would not need any such monies only a year ago.
And if you do, if you think though the fiscal issues here, then the stances taken by Grey and Pantele are clear, as is a key component to their chances of becoming Mayor.
I have tried to level the playing field, to make it so that everyone in Richmond has a new level of equality in public matters that has not existed before.
Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele have revealed far more than every intended last Tuesday.
I now have to figure out how to deal with it, to make sure the people of Richmond are not forced backwards.
As I have said, we have come too far to turn back now.
By Paul Goldman, for the blog
Call me slow, real slow even. The hidden truth didn't hit me until last Tuesday night, as I was standing there on the stage for the last mayoral debate, with myself in the middle, Robert Grey to my extreme left and Bill Pantele to my extreme right.
Like so much else in politics, there was nothing really hidden about it, the self-evident was always right there for all the world to see. Truth is, something Robert and Bill said a few weeks ago had been puzzling me, and had popped into my mind on occasion while jogging. It was a small thing - part an aside, part an inflection - but it struck me that both of them were on the same page the same way in a way that made it seem they both had thought long and hard about it.
But why would they? Again, this puzzling thing had entered my brain, rattled around while I was running in circles around Mary Munford School, and then had receded from the ole frontal lobe.
In all likelihood, I never would have gone back to it had something not occurred Tuesday night that instantly got me thinking right then and there about the puzzle: then, just like that, it was as Tom Cruise might say, crystal clear.
One thing I have learned in politics over the years: listen to what your opponents are saying, for they often reveal more than they realize if you pay attention to the time, place and context.
So there I was, participating in the Virginia Historical Society debate, having just provided some honest and accurate factual data about my role in exposing the flaws in the failed $110 million dollar Center Stage project and how the City of the Future plan that I had helped develop - praised by Grey and Pantele I might add - showed the way to how to modernize the Carpenter Center in a fiscally responsible manner, an approach likewise adopted by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele more than a year later. On this particular question, I was the first-up to bat, and my answer was basically the same as it had been at other times over the course of the campaign, this was not a new question in that regard.
Having finished my answer, Dwight Jones went next and the Richmond lawmaker basically gave his usual answer to the question in the allotted 90 seconds.
So I was thinking, "well, this is just going to be the usual round of answers to this usual question, new to this particular audience perhaps but old hat to the mayoral candidates."
Robert Grey was up third, and I was standing there, my mind actually running through his usual pitch. where he uses a clever tactic that Obama's uses and that I have learned to use listening to Senator Obama who is very effective in that regard in my view.
Robert usually praises me for having come up with the City of the Future plan - which as I say is a good tactic since it makes him look above politics and very sincere to the audience - and thus sets-up everyone for his punch line when he says that of all the City of the Future projects, he led the charge on the one project that actually has a firm finish date, the modernized Carpenter Center to open as the Center Stage project next year. This is his way of making himself into the can-do guy.
Again, it is a good debate tactic, Senator Obama is the master of it, and I have learned from him, having praised Robert and Bill and Dwight at different forums as prelude to discussing a certain subject matter. And I have meant it, since all these guys have good things they have done over the years.
So like I say, my mind was ready for Robert to do his thing.
But last Tuesday night, Robert Grey suddenly went in another direction, and it caught me by surprise as I was standing there, listening to his answer to the Arts Center question. As I say, I was slow to pick-up on it since at the time, my thought was: "Gee, this is not Robert's usual opening lines in this area, so I wonder how he will get to it at the close." I fully expected he would.
That is to say, I figured Robert would make the usual pitch just in a different order.
Nada: Not to be. He didn't just start in a different direction, he was determined to go in a different direction.
As I wrote yesterday, he suggested I had some bad motivations in my taking the lead in exposing the the fiscal irresponsibility and fiscal flaws of the $100 million failed Arts Project that had led to that city auditor's report of $100's of thousands of dollars in unjustified expense reimbursements. He didn't disagree with what I had found, for how could he: The City Auditor agreed with my premise that much money had indeed been wrongfully or wastefully spent.
So instead, Robert went for the false personal attack on me, claiming falsely that I had held up good people to intentional ridicule for no good reason.
"Interesting" I thought, I remember looking out at the audience, the glare from the lights making me squint a little. This was, to be a sure, a very pro-arts audience, and so my initial reaction was that Grey had calculated that he wanted to slam me to this group, to make it seem that somehow I had attacked pro-arts folks personally.
In this format, there is no rebuttal as there was at the TJ debate. Thus, my having gone first, this gave Robert a clear shot since he was following me. I had seen him do this before, usually to Delegate Jones.
I wasn't overjoyed with the situation, but I knew the audience was a lot smarter than Robert did. So I was amused really.
Then came City Council President Pantele. Robert at least had a certain modulation to his false attacks. But not Bill, he pandered unbelievably, making it sound as if I had called the arts folks everything but a child of God: Bill was way over top, telling the arts folks that what I had done was beyond the pale, the worst thing he had ever witnessed, the biggest injustice since he had witnessed in his time on Earth, or at least close to it by Richmond standards. Bill wanted to take me to the Tower, along with Saint Thomas More and Anne Boleyn.
Off with his head!
I asked myself: What would they take this tactic at this time and place on this particular question? It seemed so out of sync with what they said on it a month ago.
That is to say: Why did they feel compelled to give such a negative, personal attack answer on Tuesday when they had not done that in all the months previous?
So it got me thinking, and then after Lawrence Williams had his turn at bat, the moderator asked a follow-up question that crystallized my thinking: He asked each candidate whether as Mayor, he would insist on a full accounting on all the monies that have gone into the project, since public funds comprise far more than 50% of the mix, that is to say by any standard, it is a mostly public project.
Dwight and I said yes, that when you have a project of this nature, the public is entitled to know all the fiscal facts, that is the normal course of things. Or to use the current phrase, full transparency.
This was a no-brainer really.
Yet Robert and Bill refused: They said the public was not entitled to all the fiscal facts. For example, the public was not entitled per se to know the donor of private money to the project, even though that person or organization contributing the money might also be seeking the assistance of the Mayor and/or City Council on a matter worth millions to that person or group.
Then it hit me: Of Course!. How dense of me!
Robert and Bill had been making private assurances to key big financial players in Richmond to get them to back them for Mayor.
And then it hit me further: Given the current economic and financial situation facing the City and the nation, the Arts Center is likely to need the city to use public funds to bail them out in order to allow the Arts Center backers to receive certain special privileges worth millions to the backers, to cover an operating deficit, to keep certain monies flowing to certain entities, and perhaps for other costs related to building and operating the Arts Center.
"But of course!" I told myself.
Why didn't I see this weeks ago?
The connection between the current situation in the economy and Wall Street relative to the Arts Center had not hit me until that moment.
Think about it: Assuming what we are seeing everyday in the newspapers turns out to be even half true, is this really the best time to be opening a new Arts Center?
As I have been saying for months now, Mr. Pantele and Mr. Wilder have created a fiscal mess in Richmond, spending more than the people could afford. Mr. Grey backs the fiscally irresponsible Wilder budget.
So then I got to thinking and asking people about some things relative to the Arts Center funding. And as it turns out, a close reading of the documents relating to the city's commitment to the various financial issues involved with the Arts Center over the years - such promises agreed to do in all particulars by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele - reveals some interesting details about how much the public is being asked to underwrite what was sold as a private project, not a publicly-funded one.
There was a time with the RTD and Style and the Richmond Free Press actually cared about making sure the public knew the facts: and that was when I was the person leading the effort to get the public these facts for the first time, as the City Finance Director admitted.
But since I left, there has been almost no real reporting on the issue of how much public money has been spent, and how much public money has now been promised, on this issue.
AND FOR GOOD REASON PERHAPS.
I dare anyone to do the homework. I dare anyone to think again about the operating bailout given to the Arts Center by the City government, what they call a subsidy, but what is actually a bailout since the Arts Center said it would not need any such monies only a year ago.
And if you do, if you think though the fiscal issues here, then the stances taken by Grey and Pantele are clear, as is a key component to their chances of becoming Mayor.
I have tried to level the playing field, to make it so that everyone in Richmond has a new level of equality in public matters that has not existed before.
Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele have revealed far more than every intended last Tuesday.
I now have to figure out how to deal with it, to make sure the people of Richmond are not forced backwards.
As I have said, we have come too far to turn back now.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Grey/Pantele try to cover their fiscal irresponsiblity by attacking me yesterday at the mayoral debate
Goldman for Mayor - 15 October 2008 - For Immediate Release - 804-833-6313
In response to attacks from Grey and Pantele at last night's debate, Goldman calls on Grey and Pantele to come clean and explain how their fiscally irresponsible stances on the failed $100 Million dollar Arts Project shouldn't have voters worried about their having the Mayor's power over city funds. funds.
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, only candidate for Mayor who had the public integrity years ago to demand a full accounting of the public funds wasted on the failed $100 million Arts Project project backed to the hilt by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele, and the candidate who actually came-up with a financing plan that saved the city millions while showing how to modernize the Carpenter Center and build a Performing Arts Center in a fiscally responsible way, issued the following statement this morning about last night's debate:
"Last night, in an attempt to cover-up their own fiscal mistakes and political pandering that cost taxpayers millions, Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele falsely suggested that somehow myself or others were allegedly making veiled personal attacks against individuals by merely demanding honesty in the accounting of taxpayer dollars spent by those behind the failed $100 Downtown Arts Project plan that Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele backed to the bitter end.
Instead of attacking me for being the only staff person in the entire city government with the guts and public integrity to insist on a full public accounting of every taxpayer dollar spent on the failed and fiscally irresponsible $100 million Arts Center Project that had to be abandoned due to fiscal mistakes, I dare Mr. Pantele and Mr. Grey to face the public and make a full accounting on their involvement in a project that has helped create the current fiscal mess in city government, a fiscal mess create in part because Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele are supporting two of the most fiscally irresponsible budget stances in recent city history."
In response to attacks from Grey and Pantele at last night's debate, Goldman calls on Grey and Pantele to come clean and explain how their fiscally irresponsible stances on the failed $100 Million dollar Arts Project shouldn't have voters worried about their having the Mayor's power over city funds. funds.
(Richmond) - Paul Goldman, only candidate for Mayor who had the public integrity years ago to demand a full accounting of the public funds wasted on the failed $100 million Arts Project project backed to the hilt by Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele, and the candidate who actually came-up with a financing plan that saved the city millions while showing how to modernize the Carpenter Center and build a Performing Arts Center in a fiscally responsible way, issued the following statement this morning about last night's debate:
"Last night, in an attempt to cover-up their own fiscal mistakes and political pandering that cost taxpayers millions, Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele falsely suggested that somehow myself or others were allegedly making veiled personal attacks against individuals by merely demanding honesty in the accounting of taxpayer dollars spent by those behind the failed $100 Downtown Arts Project plan that Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele backed to the bitter end.
Instead of attacking me for being the only staff person in the entire city government with the guts and public integrity to insist on a full public accounting of every taxpayer dollar spent on the failed and fiscally irresponsible $100 million Arts Center Project that had to be abandoned due to fiscal mistakes, I dare Mr. Pantele and Mr. Grey to face the public and make a full accounting on their involvement in a project that has helped create the current fiscal mess in city government, a fiscal mess create in part because Mr. Grey and Mr. Pantele are supporting two of the most fiscally irresponsible budget stances in recent city history."
Monday, October 13, 2008
Goldman wins appeal in historic victory: State DEMS overturn Jones endorsement
Last night, the Virginia Democratic Party agreed with my legal and policy research, showing again that if you are willing to do the hard work, you can make needed change.
Since I was the only candidate for Mayor willing to do the hard work necessary to get the people of Richmond their right to elect their Mayor, is it any wonder that I was the one who took the time to do the work needed to make sure the Democrats of Richmond were not likewise effectively stripped of their right to elect the Democrat of their choosing by a handful of people who violated the party laws in a political powerplay last September?
I offer leadership, for a change, a proven record of having made real change that has been recognized nationally by Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, indeed Democrats, Republicans and Independents in articles and books.
Since I was the only candidate for Mayor willing to do the hard work necessary to get the people of Richmond their right to elect their Mayor, is it any wonder that I was the one who took the time to do the work needed to make sure the Democrats of Richmond were not likewise effectively stripped of their right to elect the Democrat of their choosing by a handful of people who violated the party laws in a political powerplay last September?
I offer leadership, for a change, a proven record of having made real change that has been recognized nationally by Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, indeed Democrats, Republicans and Independents in articles and books.
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