Kristen Brown is extremely vindictive & has systematically reduced public input into public affairs

T - Mayor Brown has systematically reduced public input into public affairs and governed by fiat. The only reason she doesn't want CRH in the room is because they disagree with her. If she was interested in fairness, she'd want the Fire Department out. But no, she actually had her Fire Chief write the criteria for selecting a contract the Fire Department will compete for.

I believed in Kristen and so did plenty of other people because she promised more transparency and less catering to buddies and special interests. What we've gotten is closed door governing, petty bickering and vindictiveness, and more cronyism then Armstrong ever dreamed of.

No Kristen's not a Moron. If she is, what are we?

P - I tend to agree from the aspect that what I am hearing from some of KB's biggest supporters is disappointment. Changing the way the city conducts business and operates should not mean dismantling everything for the sake of making political points and make no mistake, this Mayor is keeping a scorecard.

Kristen is extremely vindictive and is creating her own brand of cronyism. She is going after anyone and everyone who supported or appears to have supported the previous administration which, in fairness, is almost everyone in Columbus if you look at former Mayor Armstrong's election margins. She is definitely making her mark on city government but for a lot of the wrong reasons. This Mayor is dangerous and strangely the only thing holding her in line is the equally frightening Columbus City Council.

The possibility of a municipal disaster is very real here. Columbus has all of the elements for a massive failure in the public safety arena or anything else her highness decides needs to be overhauled. To be clear, once again, regarding the ambulance service. Her original plan was to have Seals or another private provider (anyone other than CRH) provide free 911 service for 2-3 years until the Fire Department could get back into the emergency 911 business. In Kristen's world, the money saved from no ambulance subsidy warrants the expansion of the fire departments budget to include emergency paramedic ambulance service.

If she pulls this off, IF, Columbus will be, quite possibly, the ONLY municipality in the United States going BACK INTO the ambulance business with NO overriding public safety issue. This is a Kristen-made publicity attempt to expand the fire departments role and budget unnecessarily and Roger Johnson is a major player. Of course, this is all behind closed doors.

Image Credit iamkaspar.

Comments (4 posted)

Observer 21/06/2012 10:37:35

Kristen and Phil Swaim do not want public input outside of City Council meetings probably because most of Columbus is uneducated compared to our Harvard educated idiot. Swaim has commented about how many boards and how much oversight there is as if it is too much. Kristen Brown would be a dictator and govern by decree if not for the Council. There are clearly some divisions at City Hall as people are starting to realize that the monster we elected to fix things is going to be hard to reign in.

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Politics 101 21/06/2012 11:56:45

Columbus, Indiana is NOT Oracle and public safety is not computer software. Kristen Brown's tinkering with public safety at the urging of the likes of Roger Johnson is dangerous. Throwing the Columbus Fire Department into the emergency paramedic ambulance business is a monumental mistake. The costs alone are outrageous (as I have previously outlined.) Paramedics operate under a doctors license so it is reasonable to think they would operate, locally, under doctors staffed in the emergency department at Columbus Regional Hospital. In theory and under the present system, the minute an ambulance arrives on the scene of an emergency, the patient is under the care of a paramedic/doctor at Columbus Regional.

It makes no difference to me whether the label on the ambulance says Seals or Rural Metro or whatever, the paramedics are CONNECTED to Columbus Regional Hospital via these doctors. The hospital and more importantly the doctors play key roles on patient care from the ambulance response all the way through treatment at the hospital.

Roger Johnson obviously has the Mayor's ear on this and is some kind of expert because he was the State Fire Marshall? Perhaps Roger can point out another municipality somewhere going into the ambulance business. We really need to apply the KISS policy here, keep it simple stupid! If it ain't broke, why is Kristen hell bent on fixing it. If the hospital is telling the community that they have figured out a way to provide emergency 911 service without a subsidy it is worth listening to. This hospital is one of the best in Indiana. I, personally, don't want my healthcare handled by the lowest bidder or by a company picked by the Mayor and her hack for the sake of making political points or just something to bolster fire services.

This should concern not just everyone in Columbus but everyone in Bartholomew County.

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