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City A$k$ for Help With $750,000.00 Loan

by Jeff Mario Smith, Guerilla Reporter

January 20, 2005

Yesterday, the LEFTington city council authorized a letter to FLOW, the organization that is trying its mightiest to force water company condemnation on us. The letter asks for help with the $750,000.00 loan the "old council" accepted to use for the condemnation efforts against KY American Water. The "new council", elected by the people, is ending the ridiculous condemnation proceedings.

Personally, I think we should sue the backers of this loan, the members of the "old council" who authorized it, and the Mayor, to pay it back, or just not pay it back and let the bank go after them, the guarantors. We, the citizens were not asked about this blatant waste of OUR MONEY! Typical of a government entity, they spent the money anyway. No need to worry about paying it back, they can always raise our taxes ...AGAIN!

And this is the crowd we were supposed to trust to run our 120+ year old privately owned water utility that presently has nothing wrong with it. Is it just me, or is that a ridiculous concept from the onset?

Warren Rosenthal, and 11 other wealthy people, backed the $750,000.00 loan from the Kentucky Bank of Paris, that's Paris, KY. These other eleven members of the "dirty dozen" are Foster Ockerman, Sr., ex-Mayor Foster Petit, former Governor Ned Breathitt (deceased), former KY first lady Lucy Breathitt, millionaire W.T. Young (deceased), elderly historian Thomas Clark, financier Thomas Dupree, executive John Burkhard, liberal public television co-founder Leonard Press, businessman Joe Graves, businessman William Sturgill, and leftist Representative Kathy Stein, yes, that Kathy Stein, the one who compared Christians to Nazis in house chamber in Frankfort, and considers the POW MIA Flag representative of "extremists", and had it removed from our courthouse. Yep, that's the one.

These wealthy liberals who are trying, with their wealth and influence, to control the direction of LEFTington, replied with a resounding NO! Imagine that, these fine civic minded, and might I add again, wealthy, citizens don't want to be out any money on this issue they were trying to push upon the rest of us. They want the taxpayer to fork it up. Imagine that. I realize that the city accepted responsibility for the loan, without our permission, but if these people are really the civic-minded people that their friends over at the Heraldo-Liberal want us to believe, why aren't they offering to help? They certainly have the deep pockets. Where is their alleged civic-mindedness now?

Warren Rogers, President of Coalition Against A Government Takeover, www.notakeover.com, is right in saying: "They are the reason that the mayor gave of why we should go forward with condemnation because the costs would be paid for by this loan." He said the 12 citizens who guaranteed the loan should pay it back. I agree. Let the dirty dozen pay it back.

No, these people aren't about civic-mindedness as they want us all to believe; they are about socialism, pure and simple. In addition, as we can do most always, follow the money. Who stands to gain with future pipelines and other developments by the Water Company? I wonder! These people believe in government ownership of the means of production, and they want to condemn this well-run and privately owned excellent "corporate citizen" in order to steal it for their beloved social programs. The more money they control, the more social programs they can shove down our throats against our better judgement. Karl Marx would be proud of them, indeed!

Our government was founded upon the principle of a "limited government". Our founders were very careful about this. The words “no” and “not” are used throughout our Constitution, limiting the power of government. This condemnation process to condemn a private utility using the eminent domain power of government is just plain wrong. You know, if there were blatant problems with the utility and we had bad water or terribly overpriced water, I might be able to understand all of this. But that isn't the case. Kentucky American Water is an award winning water utility that has been providing excellent service to the citizens of Fayette and surrounding counties for many years. I can't think of any problems ever. As a matter of fact, they have been for years providing us with the biggest and best city park we have, Jacobson Park, worth over $20,000,000.00. If the city goes after the utility again, we will lose this park or have to buy it. Our $10/year lease runs out in 2018.

People bring up the Founding Fathers often, and sometimes in the wrong context, but I have to think if our founders knew about this, they would be wondering why we haven't taken up arms and overturned this government that is abusing its power. They would have for sure.

"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." John Locke, 1690

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