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Suttle Votes Coming Soon

By   /   January 3, 2011  /   13 Comments

The first votes for or against Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle’s recall are just a week away.

Early voting in person or by mail begins Monday January 10th, leading up to Election Day on Tuesday January 25th.

John Chatelain, the treasurer of the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee (MSRC), tells Nebraska Watchdog he expects radio ads backing the recall to hit the air this week. Asked if television ads are also likely Chatelain said he didn’t think so.

Forward Omaha, a group opposing the recall, is urging voters to get in this fight sooner than later. On its Website the pro-Suttle organization says people should request an early ballot. 

In a recent  interview with Nebraska Watchdog, Suttle said he would spend the time between now and Election Day telling voters what he’s accomplished during his 18 months in office. According to the Mayor that includes “stabilizing” the city’s finances, along with improvements in public safety and fixes to the city’s pension problems.

The Mayor would not say how much his campaign will cost, but both sides have already spent over $500,000.

During the petition drive the recallers shelled out over $300,000, while the anti-recallers spent nearly $280,000. Most of the anti-recall money, $170,000, came from the Mayor’s campaign account.

One of the recall’s main financial backers Barton Bonn, the owner of Ashley Lynn’s tanning and beauty salons, has issued his first public comments on the move to oust Suttle.  Bonn’s comments follow Nebraska Watchdog’s exclusive report that Bonn, who had contributed $25,000 to the MSRC, also contributed $18,000 to Hal Daub when Daub ran and lost to Suttle in 2009. Nebraska Watchdog has tried to ask Bonn about his contributions to both Daub and the recall but he has not returned our calls. In a letter to the editor in the Omaha World-Herald’s Public Pulse, Bonn who says he has nothing to gain from the recall other than good government and stable taxes, also says his “businesses have been boycotted by city employees because I have spoken out for reform at public meetings.”

If the recall is successful at least one more election will be necessary. That election, to choose Suttle’s successor, would be held no sooner than late April. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off election would also be held.

Reported by Joe Jordan, joe@nebraskawatchdog.org

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Joe Jordan

  • http://www.popomark@cox.net D. Mark

    Didn’t Suttle say that he didn’t want to waste taxpayer’s money? Then why is he still in office?

  • My mother died in the blizzard of 09

    Easy Hes a power hungry midget that has been embezzling city funds.

  • Jeffrey

    He is still in office because he lies. 1000 new green jobs promised to north Omaha and all we get is an out of town bike trail director that puts his foot in his mouth and is over paid by 20,ooo. He is what is wrong with government in Omaha. His vehicle lease, the sidestepping of the city council to add to our lobby to the state legislature so we now have 3 ~ 3 isn’t it now? Or the fact that he added another chief of staff when Daub and all before did it with less.

    Some do complain about the increase of pay for the Finance director but I just remember I do not want him handling our checkbook or our negotiations. Kick him out of FAYHEVILLE he knew what condition the city was in our he was a rotten councilman. I am tired of the blame game since he took over!

  • OFD & Proud

    Oh you poor misguided Republicdummies. Prediction; Mayor Suttle will be retained in office by a vast majority voting. Republicdummies will have to eat “crow” and ponder their next dumb move.

  • tdanny

    OFD AND PROUD If you listen closely you wshould be able to hear the fat lady warming up to sing..

    But maybe not,as you apparently live outside of Omaha.

    Can you even vote in the city elections? Are you texting while on duty?

  • http://cox WilycoyoteII

    Wasn’t it ofd and proud that stated the judge would throw out the re-call effort because of the wizardy of vince powers(less). Man up ofd. Not too subtle suttle is a first class narciscist like our president. Who else would hire, at an inflated salary, someone who had lost his previous job because of in-appropriate use of public funds? I understand how this type of behavior matches his own personal traits. I hope ofd keeps up making comments that continue to make a shameful orginization look even worse. Oh, I forgot to mention, did you know jim suttle is an real engineer?

  • BkDodge42

    Today the CIR announced that the City needs to pay the firefighters a pay raise for 2009. Now I’m not saying anything against the firefighters, but Mayor Suttle nearly a year ago said that they were close to coming to an agreement with the firefighters union. Had that contract been finished before now, this $4 million dollar expense could have been avoided.

  • GeosUser

    OFD & Laidoff,

    The CIR ruling yesterday awarding you bums in the Omaha fire union $4 million in back pay for 2009 was the final nail in Suttle’s coffin. He’s toast and you can bet the new mayor will look first at cutting the fire department budget…look for layoffs and demotions in the first 30 days…plus a new chief. I hope your union wastes tens of thousands of your dues trying to keep your stooge in office in a hopeless cause. January 25th 2011 will mark the beginning of the end for fire union influence in city hall. Get used to it and start looking for a new job in one of those comparable cities you guys like to use in negotiations. Maybe they want you…Omaha taxpayers don’t.

  • NE Voter

    Geo, you’re dead wrong. The CIR followed the law. The councilmembers who don’t have the guts to accept the firefighters’ concessions are solely to blame for the CIR ruling. The pension mess took 30 years to create, but you and the other recallers ignorantly believe that the problems can be fixed with one contract. I live in reality. Try it some time.

    If Suttle is not retained, the next Mayor(s) will have the exact same challenges. And the exact same limited means to get things done.

    Putting someone else on the 3rd Floor doesn’t make the city’s problem’s disappear. Unless you want to live in Fantasyland with Dave Nabity and the recallers.

  • Jazzee

    Blame everyone but the fire union is getting old. The city lacks leadership they could have gotten the wage freezes in writing from the union but instead allowed them once again to go to their favorite place CIR. And the stupid legislature won’t even address the CIR issue. So much for any taxpayer having any representation in this city or state. The AAA rating is still there because suttle TAXED everyone again that is his only answer. Let the layoffs begin and watch how fast the chest pounding stops from the unions. SHow some leadership and guts since the city can’t seem to negotiate anything the way they should. They KNEW fire would go to CIR they had nothing in writing agreeing to anything

  • GeosUser

    Ne Voter,

    Show me any news report of the Mayor’s office presenting a fire union contract to the city council for a vote…waiting….waiting…that’s because there isn’t one. Mayor Moron was afraid to take one to the city council for public review, comment and a vote because he knows, after the police union contract mess, that it guaranteed his loss of the recall vote…not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars his campaign did and continues to receive from the fire union. I wonder what he’s been using those funds for lately??? Labor contracts can and are voided all the time. It isn’t easy but it is possible. Unions can also be decertified and that is another approach available in a serious stalemate. I’ll bet the rank & file of the fire union would prefer leaving the union to an immediate loss of their job…let them vote on it. I could solve the city’s pension crisis in a single day. File for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and stop all pension payments. Fight it out in court while union retirees have to live solely on their income from their post-retirement employment while telling them “Welcome to the real world economy.” Face it NEVoter…Mayor Moron will be unemployed on 01/26/11 and he won’t be missed except by his union buddies.

  • NE Voter

    Geo, I’m afraid you’re a lost cause. The pertinent, specific elements of the Firefighters’ contract concessions were presented to the council. The rest is boilerplate. By the way, didn’t Nabity /Stothert and company complain and caterwaul last time because the contract was “too long?”

    Get over it.

    By the way, a BNK filing would be under Chapter 9. Such a filing would destroy Omaha’s economic outlook for 25 years. Is that what you really want, just to smash 2 powerful unions? Looks like it.

    I’ve said for a year and a half that Suttle is just collateral damage in what really is a once in a generation opportunity to smash public sector unions.

    Pete Ricketts and the rest of the uber wealthy could care less what a BNK would do to Omaha. They’ve got theirs. Their goal is long-term: Smash the powerful public sector unions, and to hell with what happens to the city and the public.

    Funny, the real story isn’t how public sector unions have managed to protect their wages and benefits. The real story — that Watchdog and the media willfully ignore — is the disgraceful stagnation in PRIVATE SECTOR wages over the past 35 years. The conservative Wall Street Journal recently reported that, adjusted for inflation, private sector wages have not improved since 1973.

    Apparently, you’re fine with that because that’s how “the market” works.

    So, tell me again, how does that trickle down thing work? As I examine the economic landscape over the last 30 years, it’s evident that the only thing that trickles down is THE BILL.

    Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses. The new Republican wet dream for the future of the United States.

  • http://cox WilycoyoteII

    On a little bit of a different subject, did anyone notice that when the Weird Herold printed the names of pro-suttle contributors is was placed on the back page of the Midlands section and below the fold. (Morning Edition) When I went to read the article again in the Evening Edition it wasn’t printed at all, anywhere in the paper.

    Does this mean the WH has an agenda.

    Not from Oprahs reading list but good none the less is John DeCamps book titled “The Franklin Cover-up.” Amazon has it and it can also be found on-line in PDF format.