FREE - TAKE ONE – ‘HEY’ EDITION
Hey Betty Montgomery,
Where’s The $1 Billion?
Betty
Montgomery paid one of her infrequent visits to Bowling Green Jan. 24 – having
“gone Columbus” 12 years ago – to quit the governor’s race and to attempt to
schlep back into the attorney general’s office. Did I mention that she
currently is state auditor?
Her brave oft-repeated pronouncement of staying in the
Republican primary for governor no matter what and her promise to Franklin
County prosecutor Ron O’Brien that she would stay out of the attorney general
race for which he entered were left in the dust as she woke up and smelled the
coffee that she would finish third in the GOP primary, not to mention would be
a big loser to the likely Democratic nominee U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland.
Betty probably
took the following deal from the GOP barons desperately trying to keep their
grip on Ohio: drop out of the guv race, run for attorney general, and 8 years
from now we’ll back you for governor. This means that GOP bigwigs are backing moderate Jim Petro in the
gubernatorial primary against right-winger Kenneth Blackwell. Otherwise, the AG
job that Petro currently holds would be kept open for his retreat.
A
similar succession deal between George Voinovich and Bob Taft 16 years ago gave
us 16 years of GOP insults to the state intelligence, our economy, health care
and public education.
Betty picked Bowling Green to announce because she could
count on the Sentinel-Tribune, the
local Republican mouthpiece posing as a newspaper, to give her one-sided
favorable coverage and because without overwhelming support from northwest
Ohio, she is going to lose.
Betty knew that
the Sentinel reporter would not dare
remind the public that the State Teachers Retirement System lost $1 billion in
bad investments under Betty’s watch as a trustee and that present and future public
school teacher-retirees are suffering major losses in retirement income and
benefit contributions because of Betty’s neglect.
“Reporter” Jan Larson hinted that Betty was disadvantaged
as a female candidate. She forgot to mention that Jennifer Granholm was
Michigan governor four years ago.
Betty does not have to make as many excuses when she has
apologists covering her.
Hey
Betty, Where’s Noe’s Millions?
It has been well documented by the Toledo Blade – and well covered up by the Sentinel – that Betty got over $8,000 in
political donations from Tom and Bernadette Noe before the Coingate scheme came
tumbling down.
It has been
reported by the Blade and largely
ignored by the Sentinel that Betty
was asleep at the switch as Ohio attorney general when the Ohio Bureau of Workmen’s
Compensation was foolishly investing $50 million in taxpayers’ money in Noe’s
coin funds. And ditto that Betty was reluctant for weeks to investigating the
scheme as auditor until Noe’s lawyer said that $10 million or more may have
been lost.
Betty gave the Blade
feeble excuses like she did not have enough lawyers to review the contract with
Noe and said she did not conduct a thorough investigation when she learned
about the contract because the director of the BWC told her it was profitable.
Betty played footsie with Bowling Green buddy Tom while
it was convenient. Now she throws him overboard in a desperate attempt to stay
in office and save the GOP bacon. (Over.)
Page
2 4 Corners News & Views Feb. 1, 2006
Hey
Betty, Giving Back Guv Dough?
Betty cross-crossed
the state for over a year, raising money for her gubernatorial campaign and
vowing to stay in the race to the finish line.
She reportedly raised in excess of $700,000 though her
opponents Kenneth Blackwell and Jim Petro were doubling and tripling that
amount.
How many hundreds
of GOP loyalists whom she hit for contributions woke up Jan. 24 and to find
that she has abandoned the governor’s race and her promise?
How many thousands of GOP faithful heard or read about
her now empty pledge?
Will Betty return the money raised under the pretense of
running for governor and start fund-raising for the attorney general race from
scratch?
If you believe she
will, then you believe that President Bush just said he was going to do
everything in his power to stop global warming.
State Sen. Tim Grendell of Geauga County is still in the
race for the AG nomination. But what chance does he have to raise the money to
compete with Betty’s $1 million-plus war chest?
Intense pressure will be mounted on him to get out of the
race by the GOP party barons as part of the likely deal between them and Betty
to get her out of the gubernatorial race.
Hey
Betty, Paying Back Wood County?
In an
embarrassing display of partisanship and lack of responsibility, the Wood County
Commissioners turned over the courthouse to Betty Jan. 24 to make her blatantly
political speech in a courtroom and to have a private meeting with her GOP
backers.
I will be writing the commissioners to ask them for an
accounting.
How much did they
charge Betty for rent? How much for utilities? How much for security? Did they
dock county employees’ pay who attended the meetings?
The Republican Party thinks its owns Wood County and can
use public facilities as backdrops and meeting rooms at its whim.
Remember the big salute to Betty they held outside the
courthouse a few years ago. It took up most of the front page in the Republican
Party-controlled Sentinel-Tribune.
Not a peep from the Democratic Party. Do we have any
Democrats in office in Wood County? If so, do they act like Democrats or closet
Republicans?
-- John
K. Hartman, publisher, 4 Corners News
& Views, John.Hartman@dacor.net
Hey
BG City Council, Free The Library 9!
A few months ago, the Bowling Green City Council
opened up a new 28 parking space lot for city employees at the corner of North
Church and West Wooster streets. The new lot should enable the city to release
its hold on the 9 reserved city employee parking spots on the north side of the
library lot.
This gesture would begin the healing from the
demolition/tree destruction incident and encourage the library board to
reforest the sandbar and make the neighborhood whole again
Hey
BG City, BG Schools and BGSU, $36,000 For What?
News item: The city, the school district and the
university are each putting up $12,000 to hire a consultant to teach people in
Bowling Green and vicinity to be more civil.
In other words, the Beware
Government Brain Trust does not want to be yelled at by the public when it
levels a neighborhood, flops with a pricey bond issue, and buys a $1 million
dollar residence.
I can save you $36,000 with this
simple advice: STOP DOING STUPID THINGS!
I’m surprised the library
board did not kick in.
4 Corners News & Views You
Read It Here First Tip Of The Month: Lee Fisher for governor in 2014. Reminder
from 4 Corners: The
deadline for filing candidate petitions is 4 p.m. Feb. 16.
4 Corners News & Views of Bowling Green was founded
June 1, 2005 by John K. Hartman, its publisher. Its purpose is to provide
additional news and points-of-view to citizens of Bowling Green in the belief
that thorough awareness of and discussion of issues makes for a better
community. It will be available free at various drop-off points in Bowling Green
and by email by sending your email address and request to
John.Hartman@dacor.net. Patrons may support 4
Corners News & Views for $10 per issue. Ads may be purchased for $20
per issue. Comments and submissions are
welcome. Contact information: John.Hartman@dacor.net
; 419-352-8180; 1400 Wren Road, BG, OH 43402. Back issues at www.liberalbg.org Copyright
2006, John K. Hartman, All Rights Reserved.