Don't let Shawnee try Olathe's DOUBLE PICKPOCKET PLAN--free two week vacations and $1200 Pelosi Bonus Bucks for FAKE FURLOUGHS at taxpayer expense

Cities are using dishonest strategery to subsidize their budgets
without applying for a grant they'd never get.  Pretending their
employees are unemployed.  Just long enough to give them
$1200 in Pelosi Bonus Bucks--and free two week extra vacations. 
Draining federal funds intended for truly unemployed.  

As reported by Fox4 and others,

https://fox4kc.com/news/olathe-plans-2-week-furloughs-for-nearly-all-city-employees-to-supplement-budget-deficit/?fbclid=IwAR3gz-u5wbYZ4yjH89gO2hcLvuXB-KM6LLd7j9GdkEQtpogn5yBt4-CYx2I  

Olathe is furloughing all employees for two weeks on a staggered basis.

And grinning like the Cheshire Cat, that they cut their annual budget AND gave a $1200 bonus to all their employees--at federal expense.

But who pays for that "opportunity" to move cash out of our pockets? The same taxpayers!

This is a double pickpocket move.

Robs the taxpayers twice. Gives the employee a free two week vacation in addition to their regular one and their ongoing 35% insurance and pensions and benefits package. Each employee now would also pocket $1200 IN PELOSI BONUS BUCKS. $600 A WEEK X TWO WEEKS---OVER AND ABOVE THEIR TWO WEEKS OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS.

Paid from the second COVID rescue fund, the CARES Act. Which was supposed to support the truly unemployed. Not these strategic FAKE unemployed. It's a budget strategy and a free vacation, mooching off a loophole.

The CARES Act fund might be empty for regular folk. Or too challenging to qualify for, especially for the SELF EMPLOYED who have never qualified for unemployment.

But cities or counties can handhold their furloughed workers. City staff can fill out and submit the paperwork FOR them!! Make sure they get their $1200 Pelosi Bonus Bucks. Because one level of government looks out for the other.

Even tho the Ks. state govt. unemployment division doesn't answer phones. Cities and counties have back channels to make this happen. Meanwhile, the cities and counties are getting the equivalent of a grant or a transfer of federal tax dollars--into their budgets. A two week easing of their payroll. Two weeks out of 52 = 1/26th. About 4% federal subsidy of any city or county's annual payroll. Go to the head of the line. Wink wink.

It's disgusting. Immoral. Sneaky.

Reminds me of Scout troops or church teens that spend ONE NIGHT camping outside, in a fox fur parka, to "feel the pain" of actual homeless people.

When city or county employees accept $1200 in Pelosi Bonus Bucks
for pretending to be unemployed, just to trim the city's payroll,
that is despicable and deceitful.  They are being bought off by their bosses. 
That CARE Act money was intended for truly unemployed. 
Many who don't have the paperwork or handlers to manage their applications.

I did note that some Joco cities earlier furloughed their community center workers.

Thank GOD for the hard work last year of There's A Better Way Shawnee Committee. Last May 21 the voters of Shawnee REJECTED WASTING $54 MILLION on an unnecessary Shawnee Community Center. By a vote of 72% NO. With 46% turnout.

I am proud to have been the largest contributor to paying for the postcards to alert voters about that vote, with 100% factual information.

I'd also note that Mayor Michelle Distler forbids public comment now at council meetings except for public hearings. So if Shawnee discusses this Double Pickpocket Furlough Plan, I will not be allowed to speak Monday night for five minutes. Nor will any other citizen.

Shame on "Nervous Nelle" Michelle Distler. Campaigned on transparency, but can't take the heat in her version of undeclared Martial Law. (and thanks for a reader on TKC catching my dictation error--eg 'Marshall")!

Tracy Thomas

publisher, JocoPost.com and KCMOPost.com

FB: No More Taxes Shawnee

Former Shawnee Council president and Ward 4 councilwoman, 1999-2004

Shawnee's Mayor, "Nervous Nell" Michelle Distler so paranoid, she fears councilman calling in remotely could be an imposter

Ever since she quit the Republican party last spring, (after a lifetime), Shawnee's recently re-elected mayor, Michelle "Nervous Nell" Distler has been consumed with more conspiracy theories and paranoid suspicions than Adam Schiff.

Most recently, at the Jan. 27, 2019 City Council meeting, Nervous Nell Michelle tossed out an unseconded idea, that the city should cancel remote participation by absent council members--(utilized very infrequently in case of illness or being out of town) --because "some citizen phoned her" and questioned, "How do we know that is the real elected official?   Maybe someone else is calling in and voting!"


Ya know, the council member logs in via the city clerk before the meeting.  One imagines the clerk could ask them their DOB and social security number, same as every credit card, bank, or transactional app in America.  Alternatively, maybe we could have a Secret Song to go with a Secret Grip, like my ex-husband did when he was president of SAE fraternity at Wichita State.

"OK, Councilman Knappen, sing Shawnee's Secret Song before I allow you to comment or vote!"
--Mayor Michelle 'Nervous Nell' Distler

Nervous Nell also floated the idea that unlike all the other major cities in Joco, remote participation should no longer be allowed--because just "ONE of her supporters stated the audio quality was not satisfactory."

Picky, nit picky.  God forbid, the staff of 313 well paid city employees, with their 35% bundle of  added pensions, cars, phones, and insurance benefits,  could not address that.

Next, Mayor Distler yelled at a citizen, speaking during the allowed Business from the Floor, and quoting an excerpt from Policy Statement 7, II 1a, that "it is the City Manager, (not the mayor) who sets the agenda."

Nervous Nell is a bundle of anxieties, for fear that she would have to do her job.  Break a tie.  Rather than table mandated elections of council president. at the first meeting of the year.  Like she did, in the middle of proceedings. Absent any nominating speeches.  Or a request to try again.  Rather than break the tie, she just up and tabled it.  Which is not her legal authority.

During  Distler's first term, the liberal socialists had 6 votes.  The fiscal conservatives had 2 votes.  So the mayor never once had to break a tie,.  In four years.  Now, following the disastrous failure of the city's unwanted $54 million community center, by a turnout of 46% of all registered voters, by a resounding 72% no, the fiscal conservatives ran for office and now hold 4 of 8 council seats.

There will likely be several 4/4 ties.  Rather than upend and rewrite all the longstanding rules, including Council Ordinance 45 and Policy Statement 7, to rescue her from the pressure of making a decision and not being Miss Popular with the in crowd in their McMansions, Distler just needs to Do.Her.Job.

Caroline Myss (author of Archetypes, and Sacred Circles) would say that "Nervous Nell" Michelle Distler's  predominant archetype is Damsel in Distress.  And Victim.  Volunteers who quit grew tired of her crying uncontrollably as they drove her to campaign door to door.  Her major financial donors  quit writing checks.  Long time supporters for up to three decades describe her as whining to anyone who will listen---to her litany of unlikely-to-occur concerns.

Residents are already tired of Distler's mayoral overreach and machinations.  True, she won by a large margin.  Perhaps because her opponent, Stephanie Meyer, (the champion of 'Meyer-Lago',  the hugely failed community center) was an overbearing socialist.

Last Monday, council members debated the legal rescue of Mayor Damsel, tweaking the rules for electing their chairman.  They agreed this might take a few weeks,.  But what did Distler ask?  "What if it takes until June? "  She generally paints a negative objection.  The worst case scenario.

One imagines that if you have close secret relationships with members of your city's Public Safety staff, (whose budget you control), one could get in the habit of expecting the worst possible outcomes or situations.  Hey, that is the mindset, the default mental setting, of men whose job is public safety.

Famed politico who elected Mayor Charles Wheeler, Jerry Jette, used to illustrate paranoic concerns by saying, "What if the President married a gorilla?  That COULD happen...."


See also:  Tracy's other blog, www.KcmoPost.com