An Open Letter to the Wilmington City Council

Dear Members of the Wilmington City Council:

Your continued pursuit of objectives detrimental to our city's financial health; as well as your unyielding efforts to indebt taxpayers beyond solvency are duly noted. Your message of indifference to those whom you fear no reprisal that live only a doorstep away from the new city limits, and your sheer contempt for their rational concerns is understood as well. Your stubborn quest to engage in a massive spending plan in order to benefit a few who share baseball as a personal hobby is registered. And your collective failures to consider the best interest of the citizens who fund your self-absorbed gravy train is completely recognized.

Now, a response from one of the 15% who vote in the city; and one of the 5% of that, who are not already loyally tied to one or more of your campaigns at election time.

You are not leaders. You are not visionaries. You are not statesmen. You are puppets and hacks who use your office for personal gain. You embarrassingly whore yourselves out to special interest, and to any entrepreneur or investor that catches your eye with a flash of quick cash. You are easily bought and swayed by the allure of money and power. You have absolutely no integrity, and no honorable intentions. Our city hangs its head in shame that we have such simple children empowered to take and spend our money at will. The common thread across everything that you stand for and commit to, is that it must be a great opportunity, simply because it isn't your money.

True leaders would tell anyone interested in building a baseball stadium here in Wilmington that we have a great city we are proud of, and to feel free to come here and spend 100% of your own money to purchase the land, and build and operate the park. But instead, you drool and roll over, anxiously willing to shovel mountains of other people's money to anyone who charms you with simple, empty rhetoric. Like handing a child's kaleidoscope to a tribe of island natives who have never been exposed to any element of modern civilization, your eyes gleam in wide-eyed fascination.

True leaders would tell a developer asking to be annexed in order to fulfill his plans of development that it could be considered, but the best interest of the citizens in the affected area is the foremost priority. But instead, you drool and roll over, only thinking of more revenue to hurry up and waste on the next fruitless endeavor.

True leaders would never willingly and arrogantly suffer the citizens animosity between their local governments who they need working together for their best interest. But instead, you drool and roll over, selling our city piecemeal to an out of state developer charming your simple minds with a small amount of cash, in spite of the damaging implications to local government diplomacy.

Your convention center is a laughable insolvent failure that will forever mark your legacy. Our downtown area does not have the infrastructure to support more of this nonsense. We are in debt to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and cannot afford more. But you will doggedly and capriciously pursue your selfish wishes with sheer antipathy toward reality and restraint.

You have no clue how an economy works. None of your spending of our money creates economic opportunity. Your arrogance precedes your every intention by believing that you can spend my money better than I can. Your spending first requires the confiscation of money out of citizens' pockets - money otherwise used to stimulate the local economy in an organic manner. Taxpayer money that you spend is absorbed - it doesn't multiply; and worse, it has to be paid back with interest, further creating an economic vacuum. I am amazed at your lack of intelligence and understanding of this matter. If government spending creates prosperity, then why not confiscate 100% of citizens' wealth; build 100 baseball stadiums, 100 extra parks, 100 extra bike paths, and 100 new convention centers? Think of all the wonderful prosperity then!

Mr. Anderson, a few short weeks ago, you didn't support taxpayer dollars going to a baseball stadium. You are obviously a quick study in the ways of the collective mentality of the city council, and have no doubt made your comrades proud. Please change your party affiliation immediately, and make it official that you are a defiant and progressive statist like your counterparts. Your personal legacy is shaping up to be one who is an utterly disingenuous hack.

Ms. Haynes, for someone who constantly believes that she is the most educated and intellectual person in any room she walks into, you seriously lack an understanding of basic economics and representative government. You arrogantly refer to those such as myself, who prefer government to be run like a business when you distort such an idea when it matches your wishes; yet you would never opt for running our government like a true business, which would entail constantly thinking of fiscal efficiencies, cuts in spending, and true innovation. A well-run business would never make the failed investments that this council is known for, that accomplish nothing except magically make mountains of "free" money disappear forever.

Mr. O'Grady, you feign offense at anything that implicates you in any behavior or thinking less than stellar excellency, yet you lead the pack in promoting the message that our city is, in fact, for sale. You have stated that the baseball stadium can only work with taxpayer dollars being sunk into it - I would challenge that in saying why don't you invest your money into it instead, since it is such a winning proposition? I won't wait for that to happen however.

Mr. Rivenbark, Ms. Padgett, and Mr. Saffo, if the baseball stadium, or any other big ticket hobby item is such a wonderful investment, why aren't you the first one in line to pony up your own cash? Every one of the "great opportunities" that you support find you mysteriously missing from putting up your own money to cash in on the great investment you promise they will bring. Why is that? Because I know it's not because you are full of it. You have told us that the convention center was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and investments that will reap dividends for generations to come - and yet, only in its infancy, it stands as an utter failure of government, rife with debt, seeded with malfeasance, and completely insolvent for decades to come. Simple math indicates that the ROT funds do not come anywhere close to paying the total annual costs associated with it operation, and that general fund dollars are quietly filtered into it - but you evade and conceal this fact from the public, one of the few things that you do well.

Mr. Sheridan, before you is always the opportunity to stand out from the go-along crowd and speak up for the best interest of those you are supposed to serve. Time and time again, you fail that challenge, opting instead to appease those you serve with, rather than think outside of the prevailing mentality.

As a council, your collective legacy is nothing more than an abject dereliction of duty. As usual, I expect no response, and nothing to change. Citizens expressing disdain for your decisions has never had an impact on you, and that surely isn't going to change anytime soon. But know that not all of us are simply hypnotized, and thereby disengaged, by celebrities on TV pretending to dance, or morons trying to sing, or next month's issue of US Weekly. Some of us are paying attention to true matters of importance, and will do all we can to remove you from office for your contemptible failure to truly represent the citizen, and be humble stewards of their money.

We have a wonderful city in spite of you - not because of you. As a proud Wilmingtonian, I will do all I can to restore honor, dignity, and restraint to our local government, before you run it into the ground, and completely bankrupt us all.