After the vote for Wing Ding at the Rockford Speedway went down, I promised to get more involved in our local government. I have been focusing on the city of Loves Park, just because they seem to act like they can do whatever they feel like doing.
Over vacation I heard an ad on 97ZOK that was Mayor Darryl Lindberg asking us to shop Locally this holiday season. Here is a copy of the ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VNbArrSpow
I noticed as a read the minutes of the Loves Park City Council meeting that they had just bough 3 new squad cars from a dealership in Joliet. They did this under a State Joint Purchasing bid. A lot of cities do this because the savings can be tremendous. I don't blame the City of Loves Park for buying their cars as cheaply as they can. What I do see as a problem is the Mayor standing up and saying that if a regular person goes out and does the same thing, they are hurting our local economy.
Here is my email to the Mayor
Mayor Lindberg,
I just wanted to say that I was touched by your eloquence on on local
radio ad that I heard over the holiday season
"Our local tax base is supported by these local retailers. Money You
spend locally supports our entire region and is very important to
maintaining our way of life. Any perceived convenience of online
shopping or going to a larger market is far outweighed by the negative
effects spending your money out of market has on our community."
Were these the words you were thinking about when you and your city
council approved spending $57,250 on new squad cars from a Joliet
dealer. I would bet you could have spent a couple of more dollars and
gotten the cars locally and not had to go with the sealed bid.
When I mentioned holding you accountable, this is the type of stuff
that I will make known.
You say shop locally, but one week before you spent nearly 60K that
could have been done locally.
I wonder how many local dealers even had a chance.
If shopping locally is so important to you, maybe you could verbally
change the way you do business. Or maybe you should look at changing
your rules.
I look forward to your response
Mayor Lindberg and his response
You are really interesting. Shows your intelligence. Squad cars are
purchased through a joint State of Illinois Joint Purchasing Contract. If you would
bother to check your information perhaps you would be a little more
knowledgeable about things you know nothing about. Local dealers do not bid on the
State Contract and the cost savings by purchasing on a State Contract are
tremendous. Most large items are purchased using the Joint Purchasing process.
I'm really sorry you aren't man enough to accept the defeat of the Wing Ding
Concert and get on with your life.
I find it interesting that the Mayor wants to attack my intelligence. The Mayor does not seem to understand that the buying of the cars is not the problem It's that fact that he says one thing and yet does another.
By the way, the Mayor has now banned my email from getting to him at LPMayor@aol.com
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