Athens County Republican Party Chairman / Doesn't know if he's support Republican presidential nominee?

 

Athens News Story

 

I am utterly amazed at Pete Couladis’ comments. 

This is the Chairman of the Athens county Republican Party and “he doesn’t know” what he will do if the general election is between Trump and Clinton?

He doesn’t know?  What does that mean?  He doesn’t know if he will support his own party’s nominee?  The party that he’s the chairman of?

Athens County’s republican voters preferred Donald Trump over their own governor.  Pete says that the voters “aren’t paying close attention” and “they’re not thinking deeply”.  This is what he thinks of the majority of the voters in his Party’s primary election?  Yes, the party of which he’s Chairman.

Instead of being happy that total Athens County GOP voters increased 47% this year vs 2012, he wants to belittle their voting behaviors.  Does this mean he doesn’t want new GOP voters?  You know, voters that could potentially help win a county race or two.

Apparently, the voters are only allowed to vote for those that the party leaders want.  If the voters stray from the “preferred” candidates, they are, well, “not thinking deeply” and not “paying close attention” to what the party leaders are feeding them.

Doesn’t Pete have the basic political instincts to realize he is denigrating the majority of his voters when he calls Trump: “total disaster”, “an embarrassment”, “lousy”, “dictator”, “a bully”, “spoiled brat”?  One can intelligently assume that Pete is calling all the Trump voters in Athens county all the above.  Of course, one shouldn’t assume when not “thinking deeply”, after all.  Pete needs to take a lesson from the Democratic Party Chair John Haseley, who when asked the same questions, responded respectfully of Sanders and his supporters.  He probably realizes that there is no need to disengage energized voters.

And that gets me to this, the party “officials” don’t really trust “you” voters to pick your candidates.  If Trump secures a majority of convention delegates, but not a magic number of 1237, the party, not the voters who “aren’t paying close attention” anyway, will choose the nominee for you.

“Asked what he’d like to see happen, Couladis indicated he’s hoping for a brokered convention where another candidate is selected as the Republican nominee”, now that’s how to represent the majority of your party member’s desires!!  Work behind their back to ensure their vote doesn’t matter.

Unbelievable!

Athens County Sheriff Office move

A few comments on this Athens News story and this Athens News story:

1. We currently have new property between Canaanville and Athens that is owned by the county. The County Engineer is using part of it. Why not move the Sheriff's office there?
2. Hockingport and Torch are currently the farthest away from our Sheriff's office. Now we want to move our Sheriff's office even further away, to The Plains? Why, when we could move the Sheriff's office to a more central locale that is already owned by the county?
3. I'm disappointed in Mark Sullivan suggesting a temporary sales tax increase. Right now, when people need to keep their money the most.
   
4. Don't ever trust the government when they want to "temporarily" raise the sales tax. If the county is anything like the state government, when it's time for the "temporary" sales tax to end, they'll just cut it in half and tell you that you just got a tax cut.
5. I'm glad Lenny is against a sales tax. However, what does he think issuing a bond does? It's borrowing money and then we have to repay it. The payments with interest take money away from other priorities. Sometimes, the shortages caused by having to repay bonds are excuses to raise taxes. Which, if we were not repaying our bonds, we'd have the money to begin with. Here's an idea, if we see a cost / need coming in the future, why don't we start setting aside money now to pay for this future need. Instead of running to lenders every time we "need" something.
   
6. Larry Payne gets it. Now is not the time to raise taxes. The only thing I'd add is, there is never a good time or reason to raise taxes. the less government we have, the better we are. One way to force less government is not feeding it.
   

Athens County democrat party ethics

Athens County Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Gwinn, accused of laundering money from her 2008 campaign for county prosecutor, has appealed an Ohio Election Commission decision to have her case tried locally.

Commissioner questions disbursement of stimulus funds

Ironton Tribune story

Slopping the hogs in Athens County

More spending funny money from this so called "stimulus" bill. It's actually a stimulus bill for government at all levels.

"THE OU AIRPORT has asked for $3,193,575 to “remove obstructions in runway approaches, improve aircraft parking apron, and install approach lighting.”"

Athens News story

In Meigs County and Washington County.

This is nothing more than buying your vote with your own money.

I'm still waiting for our Congressman, Charlie (Pork Belly) Wilson, to start saying no to deficit spending. I thought he was supposed to be a "conservative" democrat?

Snow emergency II

As a follow up to a previous post;

Here's the logical conclusion to making our county Sheriff's....weather men.

This is from a letter to the editor of the Athens News recently:

"I think a Level 3 snow emergency should have been issued on the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 27, because the effects of the ice storm were already in place. Furthermore, the storm could be seen on Doppler radar, as well as the winter storm warning scrolling across our television screens and being sent as text messages.
Some of my friends had taken their children to evening activities, and I began to hear their stories about the awful conditions of the roads as they were driving home. The hill that leads up to Wonder Hills was a slab of ice. It was also dark, making matters much worse.
Can anyone tell me why Sheriff Pat Kelly waited until Wednesday morning? I would like to know. People could have been involved in serious accidents on Tuesday evening. We all know that evenings are the times when children are being taken back and forth to activities."

This person could have signed this "helpless in Athens"

So, these people know it's bad outside and they wait for the Sheriff to tell them if it's safe to go outside or not. They are watching the radar and still go out, just because the Sheriff hasn't declared a level 3. So much for thinking for yourself or being accountable for your own actions.

I wonder what our founding fathers would think of us now, they fought for freedom, in the dead of winter, and we've turned into a nation of people that can't think for ourselves....we want our local Sheriff to tell us if we can go outside or not....and if it's slippery outside and he didn't tell us (even though it's the middle of winter) shame on him!

As far as the authority to declare a "snow emergency", it's made up. There is no specific law that allows this. The law that the Attorneys General mention are 311.07 and 311.08. There's nothing pertaining to "snow emergencies" It's a real stretch to even make it fit under the "preserve the public peace" generic, cover it all words in the ORC.

How did we get from the ORC general statement of preserving the peace to allowing the Sheriff to stop traffic on all roadways in a county?

A morphing action of various Attorney's General decisions.

"1958 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 3039, p. 676; a county sheriff’s duty to preserve the public peace
authorizes him to keep the public highways free of damaged automobiles and remove injured and unconscious motorists and other persons from such highways"

1987 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 87-099 at 2-658; 1986 Op. Att’y Gen.
No. 86-023 at 2-121. “It is evident, therefore, that the sheriff’s duty to ‘preserve the public
peace’ under R.C. 311.07 [and R.C. 311.08] permits him, in the appropriate circumstances, and
in the exercise of a reasonable discretion, to take those actions reasonably necessary to protect the general public welfare.”

1997 Op. Att’y
"Gen. No. 97-015 (a county sheriff may, pursuant to R.C. 311.07 and R.C. 311.08, declare a snow emergency and temporarily close state roads and municipal streets within his jurisdiction when such action is reasonably necessary for the preservation of the public peace"

As far as which roads a Sheriff may close, it's clear that he can close any road he chooses.

http://www.ag.state.oh.us/legal/opinions/1997/97-015.htm

"Moreover, under the rationale used in 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023, there is no reasonable basis for distinguishing between the different types of roads and streets that are located within the county. As stated in the opinion, "_[t]he sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in the county, with jurisdiction coextensive with the county, including all municipalities and townships._" 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023 at 2-120 (quoting In re Sulzmann, 125 Ohio St. 594, 597, 183 N.E. 531, 532 (1932)); see R.C. 2935.03(A). Accordingly, a county sheriff's duty to "preserve the public peace" extends throughout the entire county. As such, the county sheriff is not only required to "preserve the public peace" on county and township roads during a snow emergency, but is also required to do the same on state roads and municipal streets. Because the power to "preserve the public peace" includes the authority to take those steps reasonably necessary to protect and preserve the safety of the traveling public, 1986 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 86-023 at 2-121, the county sheriff may, pursuant to R.C. 311.07 and R.C. 311.08, declare a snow emergency and temporarily close the state roads and municipal streets within his jurisdiction when such action is reasonably necessary for the preservation of the public peace.2"

Not sure why we are letting our Attorneys General make laws when our legislature should be making specific laws, but there it is.

Level 3 "snow emergency"

"Level 3 Snow Emergency: All roadways are closed to non-emergency personnel. No one else should be out during these conditions unless it is absolutely necessary to travel. All employees should contact their employers to see if they should report to work. Those traveling on the roadways may be subject to arrest."

Some thoughts on this:

• There is no consistency between the levels in the different counties. Meigs (where men are still men) had no declared "emergency", though it neighbors Athens county which had a level 3, how could that be?
• Athens county has a history of inflating this "snow emergency" level in the past. Once we were in a store in Athens and they started telling us we needed to leave because we were under a level 3 emergency. It hadn't even started snowing yet! So, our new Sheriff is an improvement in this regard. He actually waited until we had winter conditions in ...um...winter. I had a fellow at work tell me yesterday that Athens county is really bad. I asked him how he knew that and he said he heard it on the news that we were under a "level 3". I explained that every time it snows more than 2 inches we are under a level 3 and the news doesn't really understand the history. But since it's on the "news" it must be true. Kirk Greenfield (WTAP's Meteorologist) has taken great umbrage at my comments on WTAP.com about the "snow emergency" inflation in Athens County. His assumption was since Athens County was under a level 3, it must have been a lot worse than other local counties. This is the wrong assumption due to the above comments.
• The County Engineer would always prefer that we don't drive on the roads anytime it snows. The Sheriff needs to take this into account when he makes his decision under pressure from the Engineers office. (Come to think of it, if they could keep those pesky vehicles off the roads all year long, we'd never have a pot-hole problem.)
• There have been times where locals (driving "illegally" in a "level 3") have cut trees out of the road so the county's snow plows can make it through. I also know of an instance where "illegal" drivers pulled a Township truck from being stuck over a snow covered bank.
• We are the ones that have to attend to elderly neighbors who have no power. Generators run on gasoline. Gasoline is sold a various locations. One has to drive to get there.
• One has to drive to cut the trees off of parent's houses.
• One has to drive to take a load of firewood to neighbors who now have no electric, hence no heat.

Have we even thought about the consequences if people actually listened to the Sheriff (it's the county engineer that prods this decision, by the way) when he "declares" a "snow emergency"?

• Most commerce in southeastern Ohio would cease. We have rt 7, 50 and 33 all major highways running through Athens county. If we all followed the "rules" every semi truck (along with every car/truck heading from / to work) would stop at the county lines. How much snow removal would be happening around traffic jams.
• If we all followed the "rules" local elderly people would have died from the cold. We haven't seen the county trucks delivering firewood or meals on wheels delivering meals. Neighbors should be allowed (and if not allowed, do it anyway) to help their neighbors.
• If we followed the rules we'd have people working 24-36 hours because no one comes to work to relieve them.
• In this slow economy we are going to tell people not to go to work unless it's necessary? We don't get paid unless we go to work. Work is necessary from an economic point of view no matter what.

So, while the government and the media try to make us into whimpering, thumb sucking in the corner adolescents........some of us ignore the rules and act like men.

If we followed the "rules" we'd have a real snow emergency.

I've got an idea for Kirk Greenfield. Instead of giving the population the impression that Athens county is a lot worse off than all the neighboring counties, maybe he should ask why that all winter storms are worse in Athens county, because their "snow emergency" levels are always higher than our neighbors in bordering counties....you'd think studying this phenomenon would be a meteorologist's dream.

Got to go now, have to refill the generator, put wood in the stove. I haven't seen the government here offering to do that for me, yet.

We've turned into a nation of wimps.

Larry Payne, new Republican Athens County Commissioner

http://www.athensnews.com/news/election/2008/nov/06/athens-county-gets-first-republican-commissioner-m/

A lot can be taken from this quote from the story: "Inside the city of Athens, Pancake didn’t do badly, winning 13 of 23 precincts, some by healthy margins."
My first thought is, these must have been completely straight ticket voters.

The other way to look at this is Payne one 10 out of 23 precincts in Athens City. Which is great for any Republican.

Larry also had great numbers "out in the county".

Larry will do a great job. It's about time we had some DIVERSITY in Athens County.