In one of the most irresponsible actions a Council member has ever taken (which is hard with this bunch), Council member Chris Seelbach has spawned increased costs for ratepayers, a stalemate with the Hamilton County Commission, a violation of MSD's consent decree with the US EPA, and pending court battles on all sides.
City Beat does a fair job here of describing the chaos Seelbach's union power-grab has spawned. (We will cover his union payoff later.)
Bob Richardson, Jr. of the Laborers Union 265 cooked up the legislation and asked Seelbach to sponsor it. An already weakened Council member, further weakened by his votes on the Streetcar, the City Hall Glass Atrium, the Parking Plot and other votes for the Mallory-Qualls cabal running CIty Hall, was susceptible to Richardson's pressures for the absurd legislation.
Seelbach then introduced it and the Council majority slavishly passed it with nary a thought to the consequences to our community.
If implemented, the law will rapidly escalate the costs to MSD ratepayers throughout the region who will unnecessarily pay higher rates for contracting for MSD improvements.
But beyond that, the County Commissioners wisely determined to cut off all MSD contracting as long as "Responsible Bidder" is in place. That places MSD in violation of a US EPA Consent Decree, which means fines and legal fees are coming.
And it is all thanks to this bizarre power grab by Chris Seelbach, the community be damned.
Another example of the short sightedness of coast!
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