Quite a bit has happened over the past two weeks that have led all of us to believe that not only is there something rotten in Denmark, but in downtown Louisville as well. We have seen Mayor Abramson and his spokespeople on the news every day defending his actions over ?his? plan on getting us out of this mess we are in.
Abramson says we are in for some tough times and we all need to tighten our belts. He tells us that he is responsible for putting this city back on track. The problem is that he is almost single handedly responsible for the mess we are in today.
Every day we get a new excuse. Each day we uncover a little bit more of the corruption that has played a big part of his administration. He went into a tiff yesterday when the recently formed coalition of Metro Unions got together and filed an open records request.
I watched the news last night and saw one of his talking heads spout off about the records are already out there for anyone to see on the metro website. She held up a couple of sheets of paper. I thought to myself that it couldn't be as simple as that. Well it is not. I went to the Metro Government website under the tab that says Mayor and found the budget tab.
I looked throughout the forms and the longest I found was 4 pages. Everything is a brief summary, an overview or a pie chart and there are not that many of them. These are not the figures everyone is seeking. They are only the ones they want to provide.
What the unions and many others in our community are seeking is accountability and truth. We aren't getting it from Abramson's Reader's Digest version of the budget that he put on the website. Those versions of his smoke and mirror tricks that he proclaims are the all the figures that anyone needs are ridiculous. They would not pass anyone's test of a budget. They are simply an overview.
I don't want the budget for dummies that he has provided. I want to see the entire budget. I want to know where our money is at. I want to track through the entire budget and find out what most of us already suspect. Many people believe that he has inflated this crisis and that there is money tucked away here and there and that there are dirty little secrets that he doesn't tell anyone.
John David Dyche, a prominent Louisville Attorney wrote an interesting column regarding Abramson and his Lordly ways. I learned today that in 2003 Abramson gave the $750,000.00 a year rent that Metro Government receives from Slugger Field to the Louisville Downtown Development Corporation. That comes out to almost 4 million dollars that he gave away to a private business without the approval of the Council or the public.
We are interested in finding out more incidents of this nature. There are a million questions to be asked and all Abramson wants us to believe is that we are in a crisis and there isn't time to look at the books. He must act now!
I believe he is afraid of what we will find. He should be afraid if it shows that he is lying to everyone, inflating figures and making decisions that cost us all.
Here are some topics that he doesn't want anyone to dig into:
The Cordish Deal- hustled through without full disclosure.
The Arena Project- Abramson parceled out the projects to select companies without taking bids as per government regulations.
Naval Ordinance- Abramson gave away on a 99 year deal to Titan Research and Development Corporation LLC which gives them 97% of the revenue collected.
Occupational License Fees- Abramson took the job away from finance and gave it to a private company who collect and calculate the taxes. Then they take a huge chunk of the proceeds as their fee and turn the rest over to Metro Government.
Firefighter's Overtime Lawsuit-Abramson could have taken care of it in 1996 but chose to let the accrual practice continue and fought it unsuccessfully after every step from arbitration to the supreme court he was told he was wrong. Now he owes the Firefighters millions which the taxpayers will end up paying. He should suffer some of the liability personally.
These are just a sampling of many of the bad decisions made by Abramson and now he proclaims we are broke and that he has to pass the hat amongst the employees to fix it. We have seen a pattern of moronic decisions and cronyism beyond belief. This ?budget crisis? didn't happen overnight yet he wants us to believe that we need to fix it immediately and to trust him.
We already know that Abramson is the root cause of Louisville's financial woes but we want confirmation by looking at all the records and we find out where all the money is at. If everything is above board, then what do you have to fear Mr. Mayor?