Iron County's Biggest Turkey of the Year

This year Iron County Doings awards the Biggest Turkey
of the Year award to Iron River's Mayor Terry Tarci.

It was bad enough when Mayor Tarci told me, in person
at the beginning of a City Commission meeting, that he
doesn't have to read the newspaper or anything else for
that matter, because his wife tells him if there's anything
important going on.

Nobody elected Mr. Tarci's wife to office, they elected him
and he's clearly not doing the job he was awarded. The way
things are working, she is making decisions for him that the
people expect and demand he make.

Well that wasn't quite enough, although telling Ben Smith in
that same July 31st meeting that he was "out of order" and
to "shut up and sit down" came very close to achieving the
recognition we award him today. The only thing that held us
back at that point was the simple fact we had other contenders
for this honor.

But the event that tilted the balance in Mayor Tarci's favor was
a combination of his evasions regarding future repairs of Blossom
Street combined with his unacceptable violation of the United
States Constitution (the right to petition government) and the
Michigan Open Meetings Act MCL 15.263(5).

We have a recording of the pertinent segment of the meeting
available for readers, and the world, of Mayor Tarci's disgusting,
in this writer's opinion, behavior during the September 18, 2013
meeting. The minutes of that meeting do not report what we have
recorded and put on the internet for you. The excerpt is about
12 minutes long and I ask that you listen to the whole thing.

Part of the way through Mayor Tarci states that the city council
will make the decisions on repairing Blossom Street or not. The
question was asked regardless of what we are asking for? Tarci
would only acknowledge that the statements would be taken into
consideration.

That's not acceptable. The purpose of a representative form of
government is to do what the constituents express they want,
and to find ways to achieve that no matter how difficult the
problem. Instead, Mayor Tarci places the decisions of the city
commission above the needs and demands of the electorate.

Please listen to the meeting excerpt at:

http://bill-vajk.angelfire.com/IR-is-this-the-way.mp3

So Mayor Tarci, it is my opinion that you have earned the
designation of Iron County's Biggest Turkey of the Year
and I present this award on the traditional Turkey Day,
Thanksgiving of 2013.

Bill Vajk