Just more proof that Mayor Bud Norris isn't the Sharpest Tool in the Shed

Beck event, protest was a costly embarassment for Mt. Vernon

Submitted by jonathan on Fri, 2009-10-23 09:06 Media Justice|Media Literacy/Bias|Politicking|Newswire

by Erik Lacitis, Seattle Times
Glenn Beck Day in Mount Vernon was an expensive lesson for this small town, as it found out the cost of hosting a controversial celebrity.

It's on the hook for $17,748.85, mostly for 239 hours of police overtime.

Isn't that a little steep for a one-day event?

"Honestly, I'm a bit surprised at how big the cost was," says Alicia Huschka, the town's finance director.

Well, says Ken Bergsma, the town's police chief, better to be prepared than not.

The chief says the crowd of 800 to 1,000 demonstrators that greeted Beck for his early-evening appearance on Sept. 26 was the biggest protest he's seen in his 32 years as a Mount Vernon police officer.

Bergsma

says he told the City Council, "I'd rather be before you justifying the cost of the staffing involved, as opposed to being before you to explain why it was underplanned and understaffed."

From the chief's perspective, there was reason for concern.

The town got the full Internet and media treatment after Mayor Bud Norris decided to present its famous son with the ceremonial key to the city.

Beck grew up in Mount Vernon, and he landed an on-air job as a teenager at Seattle's KUBE-FM doing graveyard shifts after sending in an audition tape. After later stints as a Top-40 "Morning Zoo" disc jockey at other stations, Beck evolved into his current anti-government, populist, outraged persona who called President Obama a racist.

The reaction to the mayor honoring Beck, says Bergsma, is that the town got 3,000 e-mails, plus some phone calls. The police chief says his department assigned one officer to review all those responses.

Bergsma says one anonymous phone call, which couldn't be traced; and one e-mail, which was traced, "were alarming, with indications of threats." He doesn't want to give more specifics.

From all those comments, says the chief, "We determined we'd have a minimum of 500 people at this event."

Then what?

You've gotta start planning for what could happen, that's what.

Overtime adds up

The hours started to add up, with "preplanning" overtime ringing up $4,425.84.

Eventually, 38 law-enforcement people were involved, including officers from neighboring towns, as well as the State Patrol and Skagit County Sheriff's Office. As part of an agreement in which jurisdictions in the area share police help, officers from other jurisdictions were not paid by Mount Vernon, but from their own agencies' budgets. Those sums have not been added up.

All that law-enforcement presence accounted for some of the other expenditures.

In case of arrests, there was $100.25 for flex cuffs, those plastic, disposable restraints. There was $243.46 for radio batteries, and $438.21 for that orange-net safety fencing.

And there was $324.57 for easel pads and Post-it notes for use in a command post.

The big day finally arrived.

There was plenty of shouting and waving of signs, but that was about it.

Only one person was arrested, for disorderly conduct.

So the two Mount Vernon firefighters who each worked three hours overtime didn't have much to do. But the Fire Department bill of $848.67 for that day also included 13 hours overtime from its public-information officer, whom the city used for the event.

In any case, the police now have a good supply of flex cuffs.

The city's finance director does point out that the $17,748.85 in costs isn't going to be all cash expenditures because the cops agreed to take $5,733.56 in comp time.

The police chief takes the longer view on that $17,748.85. If another large event happens in Mount Vernon, the town now has an operational plan, says Bergsma.

Of course, if it was a Glenn Beck-type large event, perhaps the local politicians might have second thoughts.

Tickets to see Beck were sold for $25, and the mayor said he hoped sales would generate $10,000 to give to the historic Lincoln Theatre in town. Beck said he'd match that with another $10,000 of his own.

But the math on that part of Glenn Beck Day went askew.

There were 577 tickets sold that generated $14,425, before expenses.

Income from ticket sales would have been higher if 92 comp tickets hadn't been given out.

Norris says he gave comps to Beck's family, "community leaders, people in leadership roles. ... I'm told that's pretty common."

So the tickets sales netted $5,746.83 — after $5,754.17 was deducted for the hall rental, and $2,924 deducted for radio ads.

Why radio ads for an event that received such free publicity and was sold out in one day?

"The radio advertising was to make sure we sold tickets. I didn't know what kind of response we would get. I didn't want to go through all this and have 50 people show up," says Norris.

Even faced with the police overtime costs, the City Council voted to give the proceeds from the event to the theater as the mayor had promised. Meanwhile, Norris has been calling on donors to raise the $4,000 or so needed to meet that $10,000 goal. Norris says he's raised $3,000 so far.

Mayor: no regrets

The mayor, 64, who is in the middle of his second term, says he'll likely run for re-election in two years.

The City Council had distanced itself from Norris by unanimously passing a resolution stating that, essentially, Glenn Beck Day was his baby, and his alone.

Norris says he has no regrets.

"I don't go to bed at night worrying about what people are saying about me on the Internet or blogs," says the mayor.

In any case, by re-election time, Mount Vernon will have hosted an event much more exciting to many of its residents.

From April 13 to 15, the town is the site for the 2010 Tulip World Summit.

For sure, the Police Department will have security covered for that one.

article originally published at Seattle Times.

Reject Referendum 71 Organizers Tucking Tail

Reject Referendum 71 Organizers Keeping Media At A Distance
Campaign manager says volunteers have been subject to ongoing harassment and intimidation efforts directed toward Reject R-71 supporters.

Q13 FOX News Online Web Reporter
8:22 PM PST, November 3, 2009



EVERETT - Organizers of the Reject Referendum 71 Campaign have banned all newspaper, radio and television reporters, cameras, and microphones from their election headquarters tonight -- to make sure everyone involved in the campaign are safe from harassment.

In the media room of the Holiday Inn in Everett, it's so quiet you could hear a pin drop. That's because the spot where the Reject Referendum 71 campaign is holding its election night party is down a long hallway away from where organizers are asking the media to congregate.

Early returns show voters are narrowly approving the measure, which would affirm Washington state's new "Everything But Marriage" law, passed by lawmakers and signed by Washington Governor Christine Gregoire last year.

With about 40 percent of the expected vote counted Tuesday night, Referendum 71 was leading 52 percent to 47 percent.

Pastor Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church has been actively involved in the Reject 71 campaign, and he hinted tonight that he and other campaign organizers are prepared to continue their battle against the law again next year, if voters approve it.

"We've got to get rid of the cobra before it gets out of the cage," Hutcherson said, suggesting that the battle over the state's domestic partnership law may not be over. The law grants registered domestic partners additional state-granted rights currently given only to married couples.

The expanded law would add benefits, such as the right to use sick leave to care for a domestic partner, and rights related to adoption, child custody and child support.

Supporters of the Reject 71 campaign held their election night headquarters behind closed doors at an "invitation only" party -- due to "ongoing harassment and intimidation efforts directed toward Reject R-71 supporters," Campaign Manager Larry Stickney writes in a news release.

Campaign organizers say they are concerned about reporting that may include people's names. The fear is they could become targets of harassment. Stickney says the harassment has increased over the last 24 to 48 hours.

"One of our rally attendents had her photgraph appear and had her name appear in one of the newspapers, and she immediately ended up on one of the homosexual activist blogs," Stickney told Q13 Fox outside the door of the campaign's party.

Inside the party room (as seen from the door, which was later shut tight), a local television news report was running on the large screen and a children's choir -- dressed in white shirts with red vests -- were singing "God Bless America."

Stickney says one woman who was at a Reject 71 rally and was featured in the news ended up with her name on a website run by someone not supportive of their effort.

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Lol now call me crazy, but that doesn't really sound like harrassment, that sounds like informed debate based on someone else's opinion that has now become a matter of public vote. Perhaps if the organizers of Reject 71 don't like being talked about and scrutinized, perhaps they should keep their views amongst themselves rather then have those views presented as an issue to be voted on by members of the public, lol just a thought.

Fox News' flag desecration hypocrisy

October 29, 2009 8:48 pm ET from MediaMatters.org

Fox News' flag desecration hypocrisy




Expressing outrage that a video showing a "defaced flag" with "graffiti splattered all over it" is a finalist in a Democratic National Committee contest, Fox News and Sean Hannity ignored desecration of the flag by Fox News' own Glenn Beck, with Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin declaring that "the defacing of the flag, of course, is well within the mainstream of far-left propaganda tactics." President Bush also previously defaced a U.S. flag.

Fox News attacks DNC, "far left," and "Obama's campaign arm" for "American flag splattered with graffiti"
Hannity: "They have -- you know, Barack Obama's campaign arm ... they got the American flag splattered with graffiti." On the October 28 edition of his Fox News show, Hannity cited a Politico.com article that reported, "One of the 20 finalists in health care video contest run by Barack Obama's campaign arm features a mural of an America flag splattered with health care graffiti until it's covered completely by black paint." [Hannity, 10/28/09]

Malkin: "[T]he defacing of the flag, of course, is well within the mainstream of far-left propaganda tactics." After Hannity played the video, Malkin stated:

Well, I've been following this health care reform contest, and I'm not surprised. This video was produced by someone who bills himself as the king of graffiti in Los Angeles. And this is where they turn for their agitprop and their propaganda. It's all about emotion. It's all about tarring and feathering the opponents of a government health care takeover as somehow unpatriotic. And the defacing of the flag, of course, is well within the mainstream of far-left propaganda tactics. [Hannity, 10/28/09 (retrieved from the Nexis database)]

FoxNews.com: "DNC Uses Flag Desecration Video to Raise Funds." A FoxNews.com article headlined "DNC uses flag desecration video to raise funds" quoted conservative radio host Armstrong Williams claiming, "I think that most Americans no matter what their political persuasion is will find this pretty obscene and pretty shocking." The article further reported, "Williams said it was a bad message to send for the DNC to give 'energy and credibility' to an artist desecrating the flag."

Fox Nation: 'Defaced Flag' Is Finalist In DNC Health Care Contest. TheFoxNation.com used the following graphic and headline to link to the Politico.com article:



But Beck, Bush also defaced U.S. flags
Beck wipes stars from U.S. flag onto his studio floor, replaces them with logos of corporations, organizations. On his July 30 Fox News show, Beck stated that the stars on the U.S. flag "used to represent the states" but they now represent the Service Employees International Union, Wal-Mart, General Electric, General Motors, CitiBank, and ACORN, which he said were "the new people that we're really representing in America." After stating that "I think we should replace all of the stars" on the U.S. flag, Beck wiped the stars from the flag onto the floor of his studio and replaced them with the logos of the six organizations he mentioned. He then stated: "We should stop calling it a flag. We should just start calling it the logo of our nation." [Glenn Beck, 7/30/09]



Beck wipes stars from U.S. flag to protest their inattention to "state rights." On his Fox News show, after removing four stars from a U.S. flag -- including a star he said represented Delaware "because Joe Biden pisses me off" -- Beck wiped all the stars from the flag, with many of them falling onto his studio floor. He replaced only the star representing Alaska and said he also would do so for Tennessee, suggesting that only those two states were "serious about state rights and that pesky little thing called the Constitution." [Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]



Bush signed flag at a 2003 rally in Michigan. As Media Matters previously noted, according to an August 26, 2003, "White House Notebook" column by Dana Milbank in The Washington Post (retrieved from the Nexis database), Bush "went on a brief foray into the criminal underworld last month in Livonia, Mich., where he ran afoul of U.S. Code Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 (g): 'The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.' The transgression occurred when President Bush, on a July 24 visit to Beaver Aerospace & Defense Inc., accepted a request to sign a well-wisher's U.S. flag."

An August 4, 2003, Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial opined of the event (from Nexis):

Conservative radio talk shows are bemoaning the fact that some Americans take exception to Old Glory being used as an autograph pad.

For an administration that embraces the idea of a constitutional amendment prohibiting the desecration of the flag, perhaps signing one with an indelible Sharpie wasn't a terrific idea.

Just imagine the uproar from the chattering classes had President Clinton been captured on Kodachrome doing the same thing.