City of Fredericksburg Councilman Matt Kelly’s “Question Everything” blog got exactly what its namesake implies over the past few days, but it’s turned into a cyberspace lynching of interim councilman wannabe Kyle Snyder, co-owner of Kybecca wine stores.
Recently resigned Ward 1 Councilman Marv Dixon left mid-term to care for his ailing family members back in California. This left an empty seat on council which has to be filled within 30 days by council appointment. Six residents applied for the appointment; only one of whom had any experience running for public office, let alone holding an elected seat.
Two years ago, Steve Braun, a Cingular wireless executive and lifelong area resident, ran opposite Dixon and came in a very close second place. One would think this fact alone would grant Mr. Braun with an opportunity to apply for the job as he had requested. Rather, the council took a 5 minute vote and decided to narrow down the six to just three men for consideration with little to no criteria in selecting these applicants. Braun got 3 of 7 votes, with Mr. Bryan Metts, Mr. Kyle Snyder and Mr. Bradford Ellis receiving the 4 or more required votes.
None of these men have been in the city long, but neither was Marv Dixon when he was elected two years ago. The question here is procedures and precautions…. what procedures exists and who’s implementing them? Some consideration should be given to the weight of longevity of residency I believe. Now if a retired federal senator wanted to be councilman, but only lived here a year, I’d give it consideration since his/her experience would far eclipse anything we could hold him accountable for locally, but if an 18 year old just moved in town and was really popular with council already, should he be given equal consideration? Apparently there’s no litmus test or measuring criteria to go by- none at all, just 4 votes needed and poof, you’re automatically “the honorable”.
Could someone be placed in charge of an entire Ward of a city with no experience? Few ties to the community? No training? No or little knowledge of how government operates at all? “Roberts Rules of what?”, they might ask. Aparently so… and without so much as an eyebrow being raised as to whether one applicant’s business– which receives government subsidies/incentives– should be scrutinized at all for potential conflicts of interest. No background check, no credit check, no legal residency check with INS. Nada.
Note to foreign terrorist extremists: forget Jihads and self-detonations- you want to really screw up American government? …Just play golf with and get really cozy with your local city leaders and when one or two of them “disappear”; just apply for the job! If four people like you enough… You can raise all the taxes you want and appoint your buddies on the rest of the board with the rules today… no election required. The police chief works for you now, as does the treasurer. Alah be praised- we’ve found the way to ruin democracy!
I can’t get a cell phone this easily! There’s an APPLICATION PROCESS.
Kyle is apparently in the City Council’s ‘”Fav Five” and knows how to get the votes to get himself on council despite all these horrible accusations about him (and his wife). Kudos to Kyle for working the system. I prefer to make my own money though, the old fashioned way… (inheritence).
So Kyle Snyder ”was” one of the final three. He’s all set to go before the council and public and make his case for the position when all hell breaks loose on Matt Kelly’s blog. This was about the 15th comment or so; now, there are MORE THAN 125:
“I am appalled. This is BAD on all levels. Matt you and your brethren need to write an open letter and explain why you ignored the obvious signs and tried to sneak this past us.
He is BAD as a person and has a shady past and a shady business complete with shady sweetheart funding.
As a woman I know he is a BAD husband and I pity the wife and family and he is HARDLY an example for our city. I would be appalled to see him stalking around insanely intoxicated in hotel lobbies if he traveled on our city’s behalf. It would be a disaster. That didn’t work for the pres of Mary Wash and it shouldn’t work for council. Have you all learned nothing about vetting over the past year? Un freakin believable
This disaster was averted, but the consequences for the rest of you that tried to perpetuate it are just beginning. This city is tired of rotten sweetheart tripe and the scoundrels who profit off of it. The stench stretches from downtown on Caroline up William past Kybeccas awning onto the disgusting mess of route 3.”
There’s not just one or two angry folks out there who are outraged at Kyle’s application, there are dozens. However, the comments range from personal attacks about his [alleged] homosexual bedroom behavior, to misdealing with city finances to being ejected from the Rotary Club. I’ve truly never seen such an outpouring of cyber-loathing in my life.
Who knows if ANY of it is true? One poster may have said it best when he said, “where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire.”
According to the comments and Matt’s responses, it took city attorney Kathleen Dooley, whose bedroom preferences are not in question, to show initiative to call the state’s attorneys office and inquire about the legalities of Snyder serving on council while in receipt of certain financial incentives to operate his business within the city and was given the choice to either stop taking the subsidy and serve on the council, or continue taking the free money and withdraw his application.
As the Wayans brothers said it in the old days: “Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!” That was an easy decision…
Matt Kelly’s blog has never seen this much Internet traffic before I’m guessing. One would think Obama drones heard rumors of Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson releasing a new tape on there or something.
Or, maybe that former city council legal monstrosity Scott Howson was going to change his tune about being ardently pro-abortion. Now there’s a blast from the “who-cares what you think, you’re a petty liberal weenie” past in the September 13 FLS (read all about it in a birdcage near you). How some things make it to Paul Akers’ desk, I have no idea… hence why I only read it online. Howson does remind us of what trouble a city can get into when the wrong people get in charge of it- lawsuits, recalls, scandals, etc. So that’s why I brought him up, he COST the city taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, AND because he’s a total douchebag for advocating against my God and for killing innocent babies in the same article.
I have to ask though- if all this hate was out there towards Kyle, why did it take the man running for public office to bring it out? Why now? Why so angry, people? I’ve never met Kyle personally, but I sure feel like I know him now- intimately. I don’t wish that kind of public sentiment on anyone, except maybe baby killer advocates like Scott Howson (hey, it’s my blog entry- you can comment below if you’d like).
But if all that stuff is true, I’m sure glad *I* didn’t vote to have the guy on council without checking my facts first. It’s ironic and humorous to me that the only councilman with the stones to have a public blog, has one titled “Question Everything” …. but ummm, in this case— *didn’t*.
If only we went to the runner-up of the past election as a first option, as a matter of policy, and THEN opened it up to interested alternates if an executive session majority was not reached for some reason (like the runner up was Scott Howson); this may have been averted, and we’d likely all have gotten better cell coverage, at least with Cingular anyway.
After DAYS of deliberation over what to do about Kyle’s circumstances (remember it only took 5 minutes to vote him in the game), council asked Braun if he’d like to be invited back to the table since he was now in the top 3. He did the right thing knowing full well that 4 of the council members would vote him down and would not have to give a reason, and declined the invitation.
Certainly, this process needs immediate attention to its lack of procedure before someone else quits and we go through this all over again… until then, we should put the virtual-hangman ropes away, for now.
