I'm throwing out a discussion thread about the Alderman Meyer incident. The QCTimes' posting of the police reports, showing 2 completely different stories, are required reading before any commenting.I don't know Alderman Meyer personally. We've corresponded via email, but never really in person. That said, I have a really hard time believing that he acted the way the lady at the skatepark is accusing him of. The swearing I could maybe believe, but the crap about running this town and owning the skatepark has to be an exaggeration. If those statements by Ms. Fuller are somehow proven false, I would hope she would be in some trouble herself.
That said, even the things that Alderman Meyer has admitted to doing are fairly serious mistakes. Losing your temper is no way to solve a situation, and now this is just one more circus-like incident hanging over the city council's chambers. More scandal and controversy should be the one thing we can all agree that we don't need.
40 comments:
QCI: good for standing up for someone other than the bad guys here. Meyer is not the man that adult juvneile del begges him to me.
He is not capable of acting like that. I knowhim.
The truth probably lies somewhere in-between the two stories. I haven't met Meyer, but I've heard him forcefully say, "This sucks!" at a council meeting on TV. It's not that big a stretch for me to imagine *some* of the complaints being true. I highly doubt he used the F-bomb, but I bet he raised his voice and kicked a water bottle.
Even if the worst is true, I don't know if what he did was that terribly bad. It's just a good example as to why Meyer is ineffective. As I said on Snarky's thread, angrily confronting people is not the best way to persuade people, even if you are right. You'll win over a lot more people with thoughtful persuation.
I personally have not been to the skate park but have looked at the reports and more importantly the pic that heads this thread.
I could make out two other trash cans and picnic tables besides the one in the foreground. I am going to guess that there is an additional table on the 4th side of the skating area.
That's it? No wonder why the place is trashed when you have what looks to be four kitchen sized trash cans for how many dozens (hundreds?) of users?
Put the 500G restrooms out there with a concession stand and proper places to throw out the trash that teenage boys create by breathing.
Ask the Guardian Angels if they want to train a group of 'skate angels.'
There is another side to Meyer’s personality. He has been witnessed losing his temper and becoming very confrontational with others on the council. Disagreeing with a colleague’s position is to be expected, but that does not warrant a tirade of shouting and finger pointing.
It is not hard to imagine Meyer putting himself into the middle of a situation that he should have avoided. Reporting the activity to the Police should have been his first response.
As Pioneer98 pointed out, the truth is somewhere between the two accounts. Even Alderman Meyer’s version of the events goes beyond good judgment and demonstrates inappropriate behavior.
There seems to be a pattern of behavior that should be of concern to Alderman Meyer’s friends and colleagues. Un-wavering support for him only reinforces a behavior that is counter-productive to achieving goals and objectives benefiting his ward.
The man is pretty much deaf, when he talks it is ALWAYS loud with some imparment.
11:50:
Angry & Loud as opposed to loud, two different things.
His being partialy deaf does not explain or excuse his actions.
The impairment here is judgement.
I think Meyer's problem stems from his roots in activism.
He is using activist's tactics to get things done instead of doing things how 'THE MAN' does them.
Unfortunately, his activism does not produce results. Continual accusations and confrontation has alienated him from the process.
Just sound and fury, a storm soon passed without any benefit.
Why is the default assumption that he started the angry exchange. Have you DEALT with teenagers or young adults in such a park recently?
if that guy put a finger in my face he would get knocked out plain and simple!!! dont care who he is!!
Easy now. Or we will just call you Ms. Fuller.
The views of this situation are so polarized that I guess I wonder why all of the publci seems to be believing a 45 year old skate park rouge over an alderman.
Because the Alderman is perfectly capable of outbursts.
Remeber, his statement said he was angry.
His responce was from ange!
Has no one here has met alderman Meyer? No one has dealt with him? The man has a screw loose. I mean - and I'm not trying to resort to ad hominem attacks or hyperbole - but he seems a bit - "special" - for lack of a better word. He's like a very arrogant idiot savante, or something. And as some of the commenters have mentioned, he does have a tendency to blow up over very little things. Other times he just goes off on tangents and no one is really sure what he's talking about.
There is absolutely no doubt that Meyer COULD have done all those things people say he could have. And why would they lie? What does some lady have to gain by going down to the skate park to make up some story about an alderman? She's down there with her kids. What was Meyer doing there if not starting trouble? I doubt he's a skater. If you look at the situation, everyone else has a plausible explanation for being there and doing the things they did. Not Meyer. Why would the people have started some unprovoked fight with Meyer at the skatepark? He admitted to kicking and screaming, anyway.
Why was he there?
Well the article states they were using a picnic table as a ramp (vandalism, this causes damage to to the picnic tables and also opens up the city to MORE liability ).
So as I see it, the reason he was there ISN'T in quesiton, the rest of it might be.
His reason for being there should be in question.
He should not be "patroling" the skatepark. If he should happen to observe something that needs attention, his responsibility is to refere the problem to the appropriate authority. And he ain't it!
amen this guy is a total nut case!!! ive seen him at meetings what a joke
Please get over this "opens up the city to MORE liability" crap I keep reading. The city is NOT liable. Don't you people read or listen?
I believe Meyer has been hanging around down there because he is TRYING to make the park fail. He is against it and he keeps trying to find something wrong with it, just like the "Bridge to our Riverfront".
Sounds like a lot of Bloom propaganda. Get a life Bill and go back to 311 Lockdown.
I agree - Boom is NOT the guy we want in the 3rd ward. He is so controling and self centered. The guy loves to hear himself talk. He will not bring this crew together - he will just babble. I was at a meeting recently and he started to babble on about something and the lady next to me turned to me and said that it must be election time again. He is a know it all and Seriously will be a problem for us all. I couldn't take his arrogance.
Has anyone else Boom at a meeting story to tell us all??? Come on - you know what I mean. Anyone Anyone???
You know, have you ever been at a city meeting and this guy has started to talk and after a while all you hear is blah blah blah blah ....? Come on. He is running for all the wrong reasons. We need people who aren't running for the shear power. The writing in on the wall with him and I just hope the voters are smart enough to read it.
QCI - what happened to your beloved Ridge? Let's see if you act like the Times and cover the problems up for JLCS.
She mismanaged that agency for YEARS, many people knew it and turned a blind eye. She is a scam, the angency created an empire of poverty in our poorest neighborhoods and stiffled revitalization efforts. Good bye kate and don't let that door hit ya.
Gee - I wonder if her faith is okay with lying. Apparently she thinks that lying is a virtue.
So, how did this become a discussion about Boom? Meyer’s problems don’t go away by changing the subject.
That answers easy... read the blogs and you will see that the same person is bashing Meyers. The same thing happened last election. We, as a city, know whats on the plate. Then we get force fed a bunch of bull by "Boom the Bloom." Dirty politics as it's worst.
10:29:
The blogs have a lot of diverse opinions about Meyer.
So, if all of the negative comments about Meyer are the same person over and over, then are the positive comments about Meyer the same person over and over?
Oh by the way, the skate park is a real safe place for your kids to hang out. There was a stabbing there Saturday night. Hope the kid they took to the hospital is ok. Lights, fence, supervision PLEASE!
Friday night around 9 there was a sedan parked up by the top of the bowl. The only way up there was to drive it over the grassy berms. The car was clearly visable from River Drive. I hung around for at least thirty minutes and there was no sign of any patrols. Cars where they should not be is not an isolated occurence. This facility needs supervision wheneven it is open. Right now that is 24/7.
QCI
Don't believe everything you read in Police reports. You should know that much after working there.
When just because a police officer says something in a report does it become true.
Sure. Serve and Protect. The City Administrator amd the Police Chief.
9:01 - you are right. That has always upset me. Anyone can tell anything to a cop and it makes it in a report, that is viewed as credible. This is garbage. You can lie to a cop and it makes it in a report, but it is a lie.
The City IS responsible and open to liability if they abdicate thier responsibility to patrol and maintain the park and civic order. Further, even if the city would win a case, they open themseveles to large legal costs to defend themselves. GET IN THE REAL WORLD.
(If you can't tell, I'm for tort reform).
Christopher,
Both those report were written by police officers,(Scroggins and Meier) the one attributed to me and my "admitteds" was recently promoted, and pleaded (Lt. Sikorski)with me not to get him caught in the middle of a political event and, not to attach my own material to the report.
Both reports are fabrications,omissions,untruths,manipulations,requests not followed,abuse of position, etc, of different sorts. I learned from this not to go to the Police Station to give a statement without a recording devise.(Really make one wonder about the Aaron Howard report.
The person at 9:01 had it right. "Serve and Protect". City Administrator and Police Chief.
Thanks
Keith Meyer
The place is out of control. Why can't we see things for what they are instead of what we want them to be. Malin is mentally ill and he needs to go.
Keith - why won't any of you remove him? Enough is enough. Where is the leadership down there?
Keith, why don't you email or post your side of the incident. Then people can see it straight from you, and not paraphrased by anyone.
Chris,
I spoke for a good half hour last week with Elizabeth Goodsitt from Channel Six and her camera man about the incident.(Off camera, I have no idea if the sound was recorded.)
They were sent to my home by her supervisior, even after in reponse to Elizaeth's email question of whether I was availale for an interview was:
" Tiabi II ( a black lab mix)is."
And you are going to say that was inappropriate,but last Monday morning,early Tiabi II.,she is only a year old, and owner trained ,had found 7 baseball's in the tall grass over the home run fence at the home of Quad City Heat , below the Knights of Columbus off of 35th, in ten minutes.
And yesterday Tiabi II, to the dismay of eight year old Shabonee, found seven more,( a hot day, a little longer this time.)We put the balls in a plastic grocery bag and hung them on the doornob of the concession stand)
Now you and others can come on the blog and attack me for saying this:
"My dog is available", but I told Elizabeth Gooditt, whom I admire and respect as a media journalist (She is top notch,honest, fair, in my opinion, underappreciated by the company, and sees things that other television reporters entirely miss. She can run circles around some of the "anchors."
Goodsitt connects to what is happening,the unsaid,not just the said, ... that Channel Six and will pull from what I say, two sound bites of thirty seconds,(they have done it in the past) most likely showing me with my eyes closed, etc.
Interestenly, the other televison stations, respected my choice not to go on camera. Elizabeth Goodsitt came because she was didn't have a choice.( I would certainly hope the television station doesn't use this comment against her.)
Chris, I am not somebody who runs to the camera at every opportunity,even though I am good at it. I rarely do.
I did it several months back when I went on camera to ask Vanfossen to resign.
Did you see even the news tape of that? Did anybody?
And Chris
Although appreciate your having the good sense to recognize that I would not say what the woman said I did.
( I would have to practice to say,"My name is Alderman Meyer and I run the City."), you and I have very different view points how to go about making Davenport a great city( something we both want) and to this end you attack the sitting Third Ward Alderman at almost every opportunity you get( I guess it is part of politics) and you can't see our City Administrator for what he really is. You think he is the best thing since sliced bread and you are not the only one. You might think that because he pays attention to you.
But you are so, so wrong on this one.
Blogs are hard place to communicate emotion, the real thing of what we say, when we say it.
And all of these unidentified
flying objects, pick up bits and pieces of what we say, and attack.
Someone will anonymously come on this blog and attack my dog comment. Maybe someone who hates dogs or someone who hates me. They will entirely miss what I have said.
Someone will come on and say why didn't you just give us your side of the story? Why make us read all this.
I stopped at the skateboard park because I was going down
River Drive on my way to see if my son was home, He and his family had recently moved, they still had the old house and now the new house,when I saw a biker and a picnic table in tandem.
And the key here is I saw.
Had I not seen this I would never have stopped. The red flag of liability went up.
Chris, it never even occrred to me to contact Parks, to have them address this, because our parks director isn't even on my radar screen.
It takes weeks,months for a response, if at ever.
I am not the only council member who has this problem. Even Alderman Van Fosen stopped contacting our Parks director( Ron would say Aaron Howard helped me every time I asked him. I couldn't get anything out of the department head.)
I could go on to the other Council member with these stories. Maybe it depends who you are.
I am going to post this,before I lose it and to see if it exceeds some length requirements,get some breakfast and check on the dogs.
Please forgive my spelling.I would run the spell check if I knew where it was, to avoid being attacked for my spelling.
Tiabi II is bumping me with her nose. It is a gesture of a dog with a hearing impaired owner.
Later
Keith
I am making coffee thinking maybe I will post the later, on other blogs, like snark, cruiser or solo, etc.Spread my response so more people can see it, Share it...Mello things out. Shabonne and Tiabi II ( who caries the nick name Momentun) would appreciae that.
Sorry, can't follow Keith's responce. Is there a point? What is his side of the story?
To those that say the city has no liablity, what planet do you live on? To those that live here in Davenport, all I have to say is sledding lawsuit. If the city ends up paying a ton of money because an ADULT was stupid and ran her sled into a utility pole (NOT EVEN CITY PROPERTY btw), just how much are we going to have to pay if a kid ends up paralyzed for life or worse? Doesn't matter if they created their own skatepark alteration with a picnic table or a car or whatever. Still spells megabucks paid by - uh yes - the taxpayer.
There is a state law regarding skate parks, releasing cities from liability.
I gotta say, I love all the "anonymous" expert opinion we get on legal matters, here.
maybe liability from skating acidents, but that isn't my concern.
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