Sunday, October 21, 2018

The "Culture of Kindness" and the Germantown "Values" PAC

How do you know When the PAC is lying? When it
opens its mouth-- image from DisneyArt
I really hate writing or even thinking about the back and forth of election campaign rhetoric, and generally try to stick to substantive issues. But sometimes a line is crossed, and my devotion to transparency and honesty dictates that I tackle things I would prefer to leave alone. In the case of the Germantown Values PAC, several lines have been crossed.

I'll try to make this short. Our very own unicorn-loving "culture of kindness" city has spawned an entity, the Germantown "Values" PAC, which, unsurprisingly, has nothing to do with values. It hasn't been in existence very long, and so far in its short life it has managed to give us these (and other) examples of its "values":


Polling at New Bethel  by  Partisan "Values" Group steps away from the building

1. Exit polling at New Bethel Church conducted by the PAC clearly shows the group has no compunction about lying. They publicly claim that they do not support any candidates, yet they had mailers coming out supporting three candidates--Mayor Palazzolo, Alderman Mary Anne Gibson, and Brian White. When asked about the group's endorsements, the employees deny that there are any. Furthermore the pollsters were approaching voters immediately after they left the building, in clear violation of election rules. 

As it turns out, many of the respondents do not trust this group, and are either opting out of participating or giving bogus answers. Reports on social media are buzzing, and people are giving suggestions on how to handle this "polling"-"Say the internet is your main issue," one person said. "Tell them you voted for the person you didn't vote for," said another. I have no idea how the PAC plans to use this poll, but no one can count on it being accurate, because a substantial number of citizens are attempting to nullify the results by using various methods of non-cooperation. In the video below, the pollster states that "apartments" has been a big issue that day. But overall their polling is bogus and will yield bogus results. Check this out:



After hearing numerous complaints, and looking at evidence, several days into early voting, the Shelby County Election Commission has finally determined the pollsters must stay at least 100 feet away from the building.


2. One of the PAC's pieces didn't stay up very long, most likely because a citizen who was attacked took legal action. It was a hit piece on a private citizen who has zero connection to any campaigns. Not only is that wrong, it is also not very smart to target private citizens because of libel laws. However, it was up long enough for people (including Alderman Janda) to circulate it, and false claims were made against this private citizen. No more attention should be given this matter and I therefore will go into no more detail.

3. Oh, yeah, the PAC cut and spliced a piece that made it appear that there was something nefarious about a comment that Alderman Barzizza made at a BMA meeting over two years ago. He was attempting to help broker a compromise on Travure, as he explains in the meeting. He is good friends with "Brown", a developer of Travure, AND Mike Perra, who lives next door to Travure in Nottoway. When Mr. Barzizza asked the City to "give them a bone" he was obviously trying to request that the City try to iron out some of the differences between the two parties. But, by slicing and dicing the comments, the PAC made it sound like he had a conflict of interest, and that his comment only applied to the developer! No, it did not, ithe statement referred to the Travure resident AND the developer. Barzizza wanted their differences to be mediated. Please see this for proof: 



4. The PAC took a photo from a charity event (wine auction for SRVS, services for people with disabilites) that Alderman Barzizza chaired, and photoshopped the picture, adding the words "self-serving-absolutely.". Barzizza has raised millions of dollars for this charity and recently won an award for all the work he has done. The original picture includes the emcee of the event, Ron Childers. Of course he was taken out of the photo by the PAC, because that would be the clue that Barzizza was raising money for his favorite charity. Here are the two pictures!

First the original:  



Ron Childers  is in this photo at the SRVS event
 Here is the photoshopped picture:  




This is sad. He is raising money at a wine auction at a charity event for his much beloved SRVS, and he even was honored for his service. Yet it was this picture that was snatched to try to show he is self-serving. This was done by a PAC with "Values" in its name. 


I told you I was going to make it short so I only picked out a few of the worst examples of the work product of this PAC.

I have taken the three filings of the Germantown Values PAC for this year and put them together in one PDF, which I link below. You may easily peruse the donors and their vendors.  Caissa Public Strategy appears to be orchestrating this smear campaign. This is the same entity that planned the public meeting concerning the Carrefour project. (see my September 17 post) If you recall, sixty interested citizens attended, and no chairs were provided for the elderly. We citizens did not even rate a PowerPoint presentation. Instead, we simply stood or walked around the room viewing unrelated pictures of random tall buildings on foam-backed poster boards. The public feedback they said they wanted consisted of sticky notes we placed on the posters.
😱
 


Note: I am not attempting to insinuate that all of these donors knew about the tactics of this PAC when they donated. Some may not even know now the extent or their dirty tricks. Let us hope that they contact this PAC and force them to cease and desist with their illegal and unethical behavior.
The Donors:  

First Quarter:

Richard Vosburg $5000 
Shea Hearing Aid Centers of America, Inc. $3000
Friends of Frank Uhlhorn $5,000 
Seth McNamee $5,000 

Second Quarter: 

First Tennessee Bank $300.00 
Brandoria Miller $200  

Third Quarter:

Committee to elect Forrest Owens $1500
Steven Chandler $1,500
Susan Threlkeld $1000
Donald Rose $300
Margaret Ueleke $200
Allyson Avera $250




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