PUENTE MAKING THE MOST OF DUMB POLITICIANS

Submitted by Roldo on Sun, 06/07/2009 - 14:05.

Mark Puente is certainly having a wonderful time tilling the rich corrupt soil at Cuyahoga County and Cleveland public offices. May his garden grow and grow.

 

The young Plain Dealer reporter is digging in fertile soil. You have to wonder where reporters who have covered Cuyahoga County for the last decade or more have been. They certainly haven’t been looking very carefully.

 

Anyway, Puente came at just the right time. Former Sheriff Gerry McFaul thought he was God and could dump on employees while he fattened the salaries of friends and relatives. People do talk when that happens.

 

They talked and Puente listened.

 

Now, Puente in today’s Plain Dealer set his sights on Earle Turner, the hapless Cleveland Clerk of Courts.

 

Hard to determine whether former Councilman McFaul or former Councilman Turner is the dumber or more arrogant. Neither one was ever mistaken as swift as Council members.

 

 

McFaul poking Puente with his cane perfectly fits the crudeness of the man. He’s been getting away with bad behavior for years. The signs were always there going back to his problems with women employees.

 

Turner reveals his idiocy by using the excuse, “I ride my bike. I am an avid cyclist” to divert attention from the fact that his vehicle hardly makes it very often to the Justice Center offices where he’s supposed to work.

 

Turner may have been the youngest Councilman but he never came close to being the brightest.

 

However, someone should tell him to remain quiet and thus not make a fool of himself.

 

He told Puente that instead of a calendar, “A lot of stuff I remember in my head. I don’t keep the stuff. I have a tremendous responsibility. I am an elected official.”

 

Oh, that explains it all.

 

One hopes that PD photographers have followed Turner to the golf links for his favorite pastime and what hours he plays.

 

Puente does what reporters are actually supposed to do. He checks the records and the facts. Then he reports them.

 

Most important, however, is that he’s not afraid to seek and report unpleasant facts. So many reporters shy from being critical. Not always surprising because newspaper editors often are the best censors we have.

 

So far, Puente has been allowed to roam and ride. Hopefully, he’ll find other, bigger targets. And that he’ll be allowed the same freedom.

 

The fact that this information hasn’t come to us from former County and police reporters is that they were too lazy or fearful about doing an honest, tough job.

 

Puente deserves great credit for exhibiting neither of these qualities.

 

 

 

( categories: )

our city's political climate

 certainly allows this sort of behavior.

You're spot on, Roldo - Puente is one of the best reporters this area has seen and probably a good reason the readership of the paper hasn't completely tanked.

and You have offered a bit of a role model, nO?

Blinders

  It is refreshing to open the paper and see some of our obvious government waste, incompetence and corruption exposed.  Now, for real reform and accountability. 

How do we truly get a citizen dashboard here in NEO? As citizens, we should be able to rate service in terms of police response, EMS, street repairs, park and recreation centers, waste management, health care, senior services, transportation, vital services etc.

Puente's editors are letting him run these stories, which, as Roldo points out are easy picking.  What's not so easy to unravel and decipher is the flip side of the game in NEO.  The foundation and corporate backed shadow government run by the CDCs and to some extent also involving layers of our elected office--albeit under the radar.  This shadow government is undermining us more than any of the cronyism that has gone on for decades or more.  This is the real story of power, real estate and misuse of public funds going on in NEO.  Will the PD pick up that side of the story?

REALNEO is the Citizen Dashboard of the region

And I am working on the next generation. The REAL COOP community will be core to making that happen and successful for all citizens.

Accept no substitutes.

Disrupt IT

Commentary

Roldo,

I do consider you a mentor.   And a great, investigative, brilliant writer.  I have much to learn yet.

I still haven't sold out.  And never will.

 

Peace! 

You have to love that the

 

You have to love that the state legislators have the ability to create laws that allow them to retire and collect a pension while still working. Is it just me; but shouldn’t the laws about their own compensation be set by an outside entity? Basically it is just a pay raise.

Obviously the clerks office runs on autopilot or is run by the 166 chief deputies that are supposed to be clerks and supposed to take civil service exams.

I would bet that if you did degrees of separation on the chief deputies they are all connected. BOOO, HISSSS

I know some people that have been issued tickets and had never been pulled over. I know people that have gotten tickets after the car was scrapped. Rules and policies and laws as if they are things to work around or worse to use for personal reasons.

That court more than likely has not changed in any way or form in decades, it basically runs itself and that leaves it wide open for corruption. Are the judges on the take….what do you think! Some maybe?