Council drops insurance requirement
Earlier this week, the Oshkosh Common Council voted 5-2 to drop the city's requirement that groups holding events where liquor is being sold on city-owned property carry liability insurance. The city attorney advised against their dropping it, but the FAB 5 voted to do so anyway. What the hell are these people thinking???
The insurance requirement was put in place years ago for a reason. Why leave the city on the hook for defending itself out of taxpayer coffers when we could have been indemnified through some type of insurance coverage? Isn't that the whole purpose of insurance?
What's even more deplorable about this is that our so-called mayor Mark Harris not only sponsored this legislation, but then voted on it, when many believe he should have abstained. After all, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this change is Waterfest, run by Mike Dempsey. Mike Dempsey is the president of Associated Bank, which just happens to be Mr. Harris' employer. What a coincidence, and just before the amphitheater gets built, too!! My, my, what a surprise!
Mr. Harris can say all he wants about how the trust department he works for is run by someone else, blah, blah, blah. But the bottom line is it is all Associated Bank, period. And Mark Harris' vote on this issue gives a huge appearance of impropriety. Maybe he just couldn't see his conflict of interest through all the second-hand smoke in his eyes.
This might be something for the District Attorney or Attorney General to look into. But at a minimum, it's one more thing to closely scrutinize and query Mr. Harris about should he run for any other political office in the future.
An equally important point to consider is what are we paying a city attorney for if this part-time council does not want to listen to his advice? During the change of government discussion these people kept saying that the full-time staff members know best because they work full-time on these kinds of issues and with certain people. That logic would certainly apply here, yet the FAB 5 again does a "180." Absolutely incredible!!! The FAB 5 apparently know better than our city attorney, or so they apparently think.
What predicated this legislation in the first place? And why do the majority of the Common Council members rarely ask any questions about legislation such as this - in particular like the one we just asked?
Furthermore, the "logic" used by some of the FAB 5 was even more convaluded - with B. Tower saying he would support dropping the insurance requirement because the city is liable anyway, no matter what, and Shirley Mattox saying she would support dropping the requirement because the state Supreme Court said we would not be liable. Which is it FAB 5-ers??? You don't seem to agree in your "logic," but somehow you reached the same end result. It's baffling!!
And I would caution anyone against saying whether the city is or isn't automatically liable. It cannot be determined if someone is liable until an incident occurs and a decision is made - usually through the legal system - on liability. Could the city be sued no matter what? Yes. But that does not automatically make the city liable. A number of factors have to be considered before liability can be determined. Maybe people shouldn't use words that they don't completely understand. And if they're going to use them, I would encourage them to use such words appropriately.
This decision is one more reason to run these five council members out of office, one by one, when their time is up. We cannot afford to keep them in office.
The insurance requirement was put in place years ago for a reason. Why leave the city on the hook for defending itself out of taxpayer coffers when we could have been indemnified through some type of insurance coverage? Isn't that the whole purpose of insurance?
What's even more deplorable about this is that our so-called mayor Mark Harris not only sponsored this legislation, but then voted on it, when many believe he should have abstained. After all, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this change is Waterfest, run by Mike Dempsey. Mike Dempsey is the president of Associated Bank, which just happens to be Mr. Harris' employer. What a coincidence, and just before the amphitheater gets built, too!! My, my, what a surprise!
Mr. Harris can say all he wants about how the trust department he works for is run by someone else, blah, blah, blah. But the bottom line is it is all Associated Bank, period. And Mark Harris' vote on this issue gives a huge appearance of impropriety. Maybe he just couldn't see his conflict of interest through all the second-hand smoke in his eyes.
This might be something for the District Attorney or Attorney General to look into. But at a minimum, it's one more thing to closely scrutinize and query Mr. Harris about should he run for any other political office in the future.
An equally important point to consider is what are we paying a city attorney for if this part-time council does not want to listen to his advice? During the change of government discussion these people kept saying that the full-time staff members know best because they work full-time on these kinds of issues and with certain people. That logic would certainly apply here, yet the FAB 5 again does a "180." Absolutely incredible!!! The FAB 5 apparently know better than our city attorney, or so they apparently think.
What predicated this legislation in the first place? And why do the majority of the Common Council members rarely ask any questions about legislation such as this - in particular like the one we just asked?
Furthermore, the "logic" used by some of the FAB 5 was even more convaluded - with B. Tower saying he would support dropping the insurance requirement because the city is liable anyway, no matter what, and Shirley Mattox saying she would support dropping the requirement because the state Supreme Court said we would not be liable. Which is it FAB 5-ers??? You don't seem to agree in your "logic," but somehow you reached the same end result. It's baffling!!
And I would caution anyone against saying whether the city is or isn't automatically liable. It cannot be determined if someone is liable until an incident occurs and a decision is made - usually through the legal system - on liability. Could the city be sued no matter what? Yes. But that does not automatically make the city liable. A number of factors have to be considered before liability can be determined. Maybe people shouldn't use words that they don't completely understand. And if they're going to use them, I would encourage them to use such words appropriately.
This decision is one more reason to run these five council members out of office, one by one, when their time is up. We cannot afford to keep them in office.
posted by Cheryl Hentz at 5:16 PM
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