Yesterday’s Albany Herald had an article on the latest problem regarding the consolidation bill. In it, the Herald said “Sims defended herself from bloggers who had accused her of being a part of some conspiracy to derail then entire referendum effort by delaying the process and ultimately keeping Dougherty citizens from voting on the matter.” This was…well…less than pleasant.
The “bloggers” referenced was Jeff. Yep. Just him. We’re the only political blog focusing on politics for this area at all. No one else wrote about consolidation outside of the more mainstream media. Just us. And Jeff was the only one who wrote that Sims’ “mistake” was intentional. Also, there’s been no acusation of “conspiracy”. You see, for that to happen, there needs to be more than one. Jeff never said anything about there being multiple people involved, just Sims.
Jeff was upset, to say the least, so he contacted the writer of the piece (Jennifer Maddox Parks). He copied a lot of folks on it including myself. Later, he heard from Jim Hendricks, editor of the Albany Herald saying that the writer had simply relayed what Sims had told her.
Apparently, our illustrious Senator doesn’t understand the idea of “more than one”. After all, bloggers is plural. That means “more than one”. Conspiracies, for them to actually be a conspiracy, require more than one person involved.
Now, while I might have phrased Jeff’s accusations differently, but he laid out his case and why he feels it was intentional. Now, Sims could have handled this all kinds of ways. She could have contacted us to discuss it and explain her case, a case she now lays out in the Albany Herald (who, incidently, act like they discovered the House rule…and ignore Jeff’s discovery of it). Instead, she decided to act like she’s the target of some massive attack by opposition forces.
So why didn’t she contact us? I can only assume that she realizes that if she did, the first question I would ask is why did she wait until right before cross-over day to drop the bill in the hopper. The city’s thoughts on consolidation have been in her hands for some time. She’s had more than enough time to craft it into a bill, but she didn’t. She waited until just before cross over day, and then didn’t seem to put forth any effort to expidite the process to make sure it went to the House in plenty of time. There was no reason to wait.
Sims has shown us her true colors. It definitely appears that she is not only trying to cover her own butt for not putting forth a bill in a timely manner, she’s doing it by trying to set up this site as some megalithic boogieman out to get her and ruin her career.
Well Senator Sims, we had no such intentions. Had. That’s past tense. The future is going to be much different.
Sims is a politician, and a sorry one at that. To act like this was unplanned is idiotic, I didn’t see her too busy to do it earlier how much more legislation did she introduce?
I’d like to see her eat her words, If.. a big IF she can get the legislature to “Suspend the rules” which they can do if they chose, we will see her true intentions.
It’s time for someone to step to the plate. Because IF she truly wants this passed, their isn’t going to be ANYONE opposed to a suspension of the rules, unless there is a conspiracy….
I thought Jeff laid out a precise logical explanation of what otherwise would have been a subtle and easy-to-overlook poison pill.
There are three possibilities. The flaw was: inaccurately described; intentionally planted; or had inadvertent consequences. In other words: false allegation; deception or mistake.
Why can’t Senator Sims simply say:
(1) “The allegation is false because….”
(2) “I felt pressured to introduce a bill that I don’t believe in.” or
(3) “I goofed. That was an unintended consequence. I did not consider that.”
FWIW, I don’t think consolidation is going to happen. The primary goal is to save money by eliminating duplication. Those voters who do not pay taxes – care little about cost savings. I’ll quote myself again: “Self-interest and apathy are formidable foes.” But having said that, I fail to understand the resistance to allowing this to be decided by the voters in a fair vote.
When a public official whines about blogger attacks without addressing the issue, I start smelling a diversionary move. This tends to lend credibility to the critic. If door number 2 proves to be the case, then sabotaging the legislation is yet another display of arrogance from our elected officials and quite frankly – should be exposed.
But the entire affair really exposes a much deeper problem which is more difficult to discuss. It is not simply race, but racial distrust. Some in the black community view consolidation as a conspiracy of white voters to neutralize the political gains of blacks in Albany. So in turn, some whites see a conspiracy of black elected officials to protect those gains. Who is right? Are both right? This is bigger than mere consolidation. The bigger question is: where are we headed as a community? What will it take to ever really trust one another?
Sorry everyone. Didn’t mean to morph from a soapbox into a sermon.
So did the Albany Herald run anything about Jeff’s side today? Since I don’t check the paper that often and there are basically only 2-3 pages per paper I might actually read, I wouldn’t know.
So far, not really. The editorial board did somewhat, but still no credit to Jeff for his leg work, and no credit to this blog from breaking the story Saturday when they didn’t “discover” the rule until Monday…apparently when they read Jeff’s email about it.
On March 30, Senator Freddie Powell Sims wrote this in an email to me regarding the merger legislation she sponsored: ” Mr.____ , I am working with the individuals that want to honor the process. I will always follow the process, not a particular group or individual.”
It sounds like a conspiracy to me. And it sounds like a conspiracy to exclude the Dougherty County voters.