Tag: election

Gross alleges a local company’s truck was “kinda lurking” in the parking lot

Loveland, Ohio – It was a jaw dropping and eye-rolling allegation directed at a Loveland business and any, one, of their 75 employees when Councilwoman Pam Gross said from the council table on April 11, “There was a truck, for lack of a better word, that was kinda lurking in the parking lot.” She said she had just left the previous council meeting, heading to her car, when a truck seemed suspicious because it, “Kept stopping and slowing, and stopping and slowing.” Gross said it returned after a trip around the block. Gross identified a company name on the truck, and called out a resident who had just spoken at the public podium. She wanted the resident to identify who was driving the truck. The resident works for the company Gross made the allegation about and had also spoken at that previous council meeting.

Cries from the audience were of disbelief and became hostile, “Excuse me – are you kidding”  and “Oh my God.”

Mayor Mark Fitzgerald pounded his gavel telling the audience, You’re out of order, you’re out of order. Cease. You’ll be asked to leave.” He quieted the crowd, but not his council colleague.

The resident, who Loveland Magazine is not naming, went to work the next day and reported the allegation to the company owner. It was discovered, “The “lurking” pick up Ms. Gross referred to at our city council meeting last night, was a salesman leaving after a long day at work and dinner at Paxton’s. One Irish Coffee and an appetizer.”

Gross said that she wasn’t accusing the resident of anything, but wanted him to identify the driver. This was her clarification after she began her allegation by saying to the resident, “There is something on my mind that is directly related to you.”

When Gross said she wasn’t accusing the resident of anything, someone shouted from the audience, “Yes you did. Yes you did.”

This LOVELAND MAGAZINE TV video has portions blurred and some audio deliberately distorted so neither the resident, co-workers, or the local business would be harmed by the allegation.

 

 

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These exclusive LOVELAND MAGAZINE TV videos will tell you what is being proposed

by David Miller

Loveland, Ohio – Last December it was announced that City Hall would be demolished and a new four-story building would take its place. City Hall offices were to be located on the second-floor, with retail and commercial on the first-floor. The top two-floors would be residential. City operations would temporarily move to a leased building on Cottonwood Drive when City Hall was demolished. In January, City Council was positioned to vote on the $89,000/year lease, when something went wrong, exactly what, has never been disclosed.

Loveland Magazine was quite surprised with this announcement and apparently many in the community as well. After reviewing meeting minutes from various City meeting going back several months and finding nothing about this specific plan, Loveland Magazine sent an Email to City Manager Dave Kennedy on January 26 asking if this detailed project had ever been discussed in open meetings at City Hall. This is how he responded:

?’s about new City Hall – January 26, 2017

LM: Did Council ever made a public vote on the decision to proceed?

DK: No they have not made an official public vote.

LM: Was there ever any public discussion in open session of Council or other public bodies, about the specific plan that was announced in the Straight From the Heart newsletter of December 15, 2016? I know I heard general discussions over the past year of perhaps selling City Hall, but I do not recall reading about or hearing any discussion of this specific plan.

DK: I have updated council through our council goals which includes the project. At the most recent council meeting I discussed the status of the project.

LM: If I have missed any of this and you could point to specific Council minutes, could you tell me which ones I should read?

DK: (Kennedy did not answer)

LM: I guess I am interested to have answers to these same questions if they pertain to the Planing and Zoning Commission, CIC, or the Finance Committee.

DK: We have referenced/updated the Finance Committee on the concept of the project.

DK: Could you tell me where all of the financing for this project comes from? Including legal, and cost of hiring McGill Smith Punshon Architects, or any other outside costs now attributed to planning and implementing this project, including bond counsel.

DK: That is still being formulated.

Resident Neil Oury has also recently questioned the apparent done deal and lack of transparency. Read background: “Here’s what Vice-Mayor Settle didn’t want you to know” published on March 22. Oury said he also research City Hall records going back several months and found nothing. He was also critical that an architect had been hired and drawings completed without the public knowing anything about the project.

Below is the announcement made in the City newsletter on December 15, 2016

The re-branding

Loveland Magazine was the only media outlet at the Community Improvement (CIC) meeting last Tuesday when the City Hall project was re-branded as if the December announcement had never been made. Today we are publishing the first of a series of videos from the meeting. It was quite a long meeting, so the meeting is presented in a series of shorter segments so you can view them one at at time, and go back at your leisure and not feel lost.

Apparently, the CIC has been given the task of making recommendations to City Council on the rebuilding of City Hall, although when or where that decision was made is anyone’s guess.

It will take a lot of effort on the reader’s part to view the entire discussion, but when finished you will be one of just a few in the community who know what options are under consideration and the recommendations that are going to be made to City Council.

The next CIC meeting is at 1 PM on April 24 at City Hall.

Loveland Magazine will not be summarizing the discussions. It is the public’s homework to do, and they can draw their own conclusions.

 

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Loveland Magazine was the only media outlet to attend and report from this council meeting

 

Loveland, Ohio – Peggy Goodwin spoke at the Loveland City council meeting on March 28, explaining how provisions in a proposed “Transient Business and Vendors” ordinance can have a negative impact on the Loveland Farmers’ Market and other public events in the City. She told Loveland Magazine yesterday via an Email, “We are moving ahead with plans to open the market on May 2, but I’d like to withhold comment on the proposed changes until this ordinance comes back to Council next week. We want to be sure those changes negotiated by Kathy Bailey and Pam Gross are actually adopted by the full Council as our successful operation depends on the provisions outlined in that draft document.”

At the meeting, the ordinance that had been previously introduced was voted down, and replace with that draft document. The revision, a red and blue lined document, that can be read below, was not passed out to those in attendance until after the open forum. The ordinance that will be in front of Council for a vote this Tuesday can also be read below. Goodwin is one of eight volunteers that manage the market. At the open forum, she said they have serious concerns about the ordinance. She said, “This places an undue burden on the market and our vendors.” She told the council that the fees and process make the Loveland market uncompetitive with markets in areas surrounding Loveland.

Goodwin said many of the farmers who sell at the market will have to make a 2-hour round-trip to come to Loveland to fill out paperwork and pay the fees. She detailed other concerns, and you can learn about them in the video below. Included are requirements for insurance, fingerprinting, and background checks. She said that many vendors will find the entire cost too much and they might soon realize that Loveland is no longer an “Attractive entity.”

Clerk of Council Misty Cheshire said on Friday that the ordinance has been amended further, but did not disclose if there are further changes.

Joe Wahler, a nearby resident and vendor at the market who sells jams and jellies also urged council to reconsider what they were doing. He started what he felt was an amusing presentation by saying, “Howdy. How y’all doing? I’m back again.” He continued, “Um, I feel really, really ignorant – because, I cannot for the life of me begin to comprehend or understand what it is about the Farmers’ Market that makes you think that putting us out of business is going to bring more money into the City of Loveland.” He asked council if they were serious about wanting to fingerprint him and make him undergo a background check just to sell jams and jellies.

Mayor Mark Fitzgerald told Wahler that the open forum was Wahler’s chance to speak, but would not enter into a dialogue. The question Wahler asked went unanswered. Fitzgerald said, “You’re our guest and we welcome you, but we are not here for your question and answer – so if you’d just please conclude your comments.”

Wahler responded, “I’m tickled no end to be here.”

“I will be paying much attention to how the voters react when they find out that their daughters in the Girl Scouts selling cookies need to be fingerprinted, and that their sons in the Boy Scouts selling popcorn need to be fingerprinted.”

Waller concluded his presentation by barking.

 

 

Read: Transient Business and Vendors Ordinance that will be at Council Table Tuesday, April 11, 2014

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City attorney instructed to distance City Hall from letter Mayor sent to 5 residents

Loveland, Ohio – Concern about the ethical behavior of Mark Fitzgerald and his fitness to continue serving on Council escalated at the March 28 council meeting. On March 23, the Mayor, through his private attorney, sent a letter to five residents demanding they preserve phone and computer records, email, voicemail, and, “All Internet and Web-browser-generated history files, caches and ‘cookies’ files generated at your workstation.”

[quote_left]Mr. Mayor, I will not allow myself to be intimated by you, or by members of this council that aligns themselves with you.[/quote_left]Ellen Mershon was first to the open forum microphone to express her outrage over the tone and specific language of the letter she received. It was sent to her on behalf of Fitzgerald in his, “Capacity as the Mayor of Loveland, Ohio.” The letter (below) contained 5-pages of demands. It said the recipients may be the subject of a defamation lawsuit and their personal files may be used as evidence. She refuted the allegation that she has defamed the Mayor. “There is nothing personally that I have stated that is not a matter of public record or available for a quick internet search. Mr. Mayor, I will not allow myself to be intimated by you, or by members of this council that aligns themselves with you.”

[quote_right]We will rise by continuing to make our community a better place.[/quote_right]Mershon’s voice rose over the Mayor’s objection to her talking about the letter, saying above the sound of the Mayor’s gavel, “People face everything together and rise. I thank you for strengthening my resolve in that regard. I will rise as others will. We will not be deterred because I am now more determined than ever that our community needs a change. We will rise by continuing to make our community a better place. We will rise during the upcoming election, educating our community and supporting candidates who have a positive vision for our entire community.”

[quote_left]The demand letter’s broad brush seems to included all users of the resident’s personal devices. It also demands the preservation of passwords, network access codes, ID names, and business records.[/quote_left] The letter said, “In the event of action for defamation or any other cause of action is commenced against you, we expect to obtain from you, personally and through discovery, a number of documents and tangible things including (without limitation) files stored on your computer(s) an all other electronic storage media.”

The demand letter’s broad brush seems to included all users of the resident’s personal devices. It also demands the preservation of passwords, network access codes, ID names, and business records. It tells the residents, “Pursuant to this Notice” they must immediately make a copy of all Data on the storage device of their personal computers, and any external storage devices must immediately be put into storage.

It goes on to say that Fitzgerald anticipates possibly filing a motion in court requesting the preservation of the documents, “Notwithstanding, this notice obligates each of you to preserve Data and any other documents independently of any Order on such Motion” by a judge. The request applies to any handwritten notes on any requested documents that may have been printed as a hard copy.

Fitzgerald is looking for any comments the five may have made about him concerning his tenure as City Administrator of North College Hill. It warns the residents that destruction or failure to preserve files, “Can result in sanctions being imposed upon you by a Court of competent jurisdiction for spoliation of evidence or potential evidence.” (For background about Fitzgerald’s tenure as Administrator for North College Hill, read: Here’s what Vice-Mayor Settle didn’t want you to know)

Neil Oury also received the letter and spoke about it. However, he had an additional beef. He said that the Mayor personally contacted his employer to inquirer if he knew what Oury said about him at a previous [quote_right]Oury concluded by saying, “Your mischievous tactics, shaky shenanigans won’t shut me up[/quote_right]council meeting. Oury believes that was a further act of intimidation. He said, “Typical behaviors of bullying and turmoil by intimidation. My employer doesn’t tell me what to say – how to act. My employer has nothing to do with my views or my opinion on politics. Texting him was simply an attempt to intimidate – to pressure him, to shut me up.”

Oury concluded by saying, “Your mischievous tactics, shaky shenanigans won’t shut me up. Mark, we’ve had enough of your lies. We’re fed up with your bullying, and we have no hope in you. We feel you can’t be trusted anymore. We don’t want you as our mayor anymore. In fact, we don’t want you on our council anymore. So, I’m here to publicly ask you to resign from our council immediately.”

[quote_left]And, quite frankly sir, this letter right here is obviously an intent to silence and threaten us. It cannot stand.[/quote_left]Halie Rebbeccaschild received the letter and asked the other council members if they were OK that the letter was sent with language saying it came from Fitzgerald in his capacity as Mayor of Loveland. Fitzgerald interrupted saying she could not talk about the letter because it did not relate to matters of City business. However, Rebbeccaschild persisted, “And, quite frankly sir, this letter right here is obviously an intent to silence and threaten us. It cannot stand.” She asked the other council members if it was acceptable that the mayor of the City is a harasser. “And, I also question how each of you are implicated by this letter.  Do you want to associate yourself with that come election time?”

Several times throughout the meeting Fitzgerald reprimanded people for clapping and shouting from the audience. He threatened to remove one person from the room.

When Councilmember Rob Weisgerber tried to discuss the letter he was ruled out of order by Fitzgerald. He appealed to council to overrule the Mayor. His motion failed with a tie vote and he could not continue. Fitzgerald, Angie Settell, and Pam Gross voted not to allow Weisgerber to speak. Kathy Bailey and Ted Phelps voted to allow the discussion.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Bailey made a motion for the City Solicitor to send a letter to Fitzgerald’s attorney instructing him to not represent that he serves as attorney for the City or its elected officials, and to correct the misstatement where he said he was representing Fitzgerald in his capacity as mayor of Loveland. She said she made the motion, “To protect the City.”

City Solicitor Joe Brawn said, “I saw this for the first time tonight. I had no role in this.” He said he would prefer that the letter did not state, “In his capacity as Mayor of Loveland, Ohio.” He said he could easily send the letter, however, Fitzgerald could also tell his attorney, “Don’t repeat that statement in the future.”

Both Angie Settell and Pam Gross said they had no knowledge of the letter, and abstained from voting. Fitzgerald voted, “No.” The vote on Bailey’s motion passed 3-1, with Weisgerber and Ted Phelps voting, “Yes”. Council member Stephen Zamagias was absent.

You can read the letter the five residents received: Spoliation Warning – Possible Defamation of Mayor Mark Fitzgerald

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Resources for protecting your own personal Data from lawyers, the government, and people who wish you harm

by Elise Hendrick

For most of it I’m more of a compiler than a source, and whilst I probably know a lot more about this stuff than most people, I’m far from an expert on the subject (I mostly just know people). I guess you could just put me down as ‘writer and translator’ or something like that.

The basic takeaway from the ‘Vault 7’ release from Wikileaks is that encryption works. In fact, it works so well that the CIA is having to go through all sorts of difficulties in order to target and hack individual devices because they can only actually look at people’s traffic BEFORE it’s encrypted. 

Panopticlick is a tool provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that assesses how vulnerable your browser is to tracking. Apart from the things people know about, there are all sorts of random settings that can be used to deanonymise web traffic, and this lets you know how well you’re doing at it.

 

 

Privacy Badger – Chrome extension that blocks various types of trackers. 

 

 

 

 

Ricochet – Tor-based desktop chat proggram that anonymises users by assigning everyone random user IDs. No logs are kept anywhere, so the chat itself erases the minute you close the session

 

 

 

TrueCrypt is basically the gold standard of full-disk encryption. It allows you to encrypt and hide files on your hard drive. The project ended abruptly a couple of years ago, and the original developers (who emained anonymous to make themselves less vulnerable to state pressure) released a version 7.2 that is basically useless. This link has version 7.1, the latest good version of TrueCrypt. It’s actually passed an extensive security audit. The cool thing about this is that it can actually take your encrypted files and render them totally invisible so that even if someone were to require you to let them look at your computer or your external drives, they wouldn’t even see the files in the first place, so they’d never demand the password for them.

 

(BitLocker, Microsoft’s disk encryption utility, is useless, because it’s known that the NSA has a backdoor)

 

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Silence a resident: A story is born!

by David Miller

Loveland, Ohio – Life-long resident, Neil Oury asked the Mayor for time to speak at the February 14 council meeting. The request was granted and his name was added to the agenda. Oury said he wanted to speak about future downtown development projects. He barely started speaking when Vice-Mayor Angie Settle, who was presiding over the meeting in the absence of Mayor Mark Fitzgerald, continuously interrupted him and said he must stick to the subject of what he was given permission to speak about.

The first interruption was when Oury talked about how Loveland taxpayers paid $20,000 to put on Christmas in Loveland and the Fourth of July celebration, events previously put on by the Loveland Chamber of Commerce at no cost to taxpayers. (“On the sly” – How City Hall pirated Christmas in Loveland)

Settell: “I’m sorry, if you don’t get to your point, I’m calling you out of order. You signed to speak about one thing.”

Oury:  “Yeah, I’m getting to it.”

Settell: “No, You got to get to it right now. I’ve reminded you three times, I’m sorry but your time is up.”

The more adamant interruptions by Settell was when Oury tried to speak about a lawsuit filed against Fitzgerald when he was City Manager of North College Hill.

Oury says he is very concerned that a decision had been made to demolish Loveland’s City Hall without public knowledge. He said the project to construct a new City Hall was announced as a done deal in the City newsletter and he reviewed past meeting minutes and could find nothing concerning the project. He says that he wants more transparency in decisions about downtown development and knowledge about how Fitzgerald managed affairs as City Manager of North College Hill should be a warning to Loveland residents and council. He said that when City Hall takes over popular public events, interferes with events like the Loveland Farmers’ Market, and decides behind closed doors to rebuild City Hall, it’s time for a change from business as usual.

 

Oury: I find it real ironic that basically, our mayor acted the same way when he worked for North College Hill as city administrator. He was…

Settell: OK Mr. Oury, ya know…

Oury: There’s a very good point to this.

Settell: You talked about, um…

Oury: You’re interrupting my time.

Settell: Well I know, because I’ve asked you several times to stay on point, OK. This is not on point when you start talking about individuals’ personalities. Let’s confine it to the issue, please.

Oury: It’s not personalities.

Settell: Well, That’s what it sounds like to me.

Oury: We have a mayor that has committed fraud and is being sued for fraud.

Settell: OK, That’s it.

Oury: And I think he is doing the same thing here.

Settell: OK, I’m sorry.  I’m not going to stand here and let you talk about people who are not here to defend themselves.

Oury: He can watch it on tape.

Settell: Well, he’s not here.

Oury: I’m not going to discuss it with him, I’m making a statement.

Settell: OK, your times up. Thank you.

Below is video of the exchange. You can also read at the bottom of this story the full text of the remarks Oury tried to read at the council meeting.

 

Angered after reading the minutes of the meeting, Fitzgerald lit into Oury at the next council meeting saying Oury lied about ever being accused of fraud.

 

 

In this video, Oury reacts to Fitzgerald’s anger:

 

Oury also spoke to Loveland Magazine about his treatment by Vice-Mayor Angie Settlell:

 

The next council meeting brought a response from lawyer and Councilman Ted Phelps who decided to comment on Fitzgerald’s allegation that Oury lied. Phelps said, “The statement about the Mayor having never been on the receiving end of a complaint of fraud is not corroborated by filings made in Hamilton and Montgomery County courts.”

 

 

 

BACKGROUND OF FITZGERALD’S WOES AS CITY MANAGER OF NORTH COLLEGE HILL

In June of 2014, when Shawna O’Shea was a member of the North College Hill (NCH) council she filed a taxpayer lawsuit against the City and City Manager Mark Fitzgerald for what she argued, “Was an attempt to continually misrepresent facts to Council, engage in fraudulent behavior toward the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS), misapply city funds, and abuse corporate powers.” The lawsuit revolved around allegations of combining the salaries of Fitzgerald and his wife, Economic Developer Linda Fitzgerald, in order to increase future retirement checks for Mark Fitzgerald.

Then-Mayor Dan Brooks and Mark Fitzgerald wanted Linda Fitzgerald to take no salary and to have what would have been paid to her, combined with her husband’s salary.

O’Shea alleged Mark Fitzgerald was engaged in fraudulent behavior toward OPERS in order to bolster his retirement benefits. By combining both salaries it was alleged that Mark Fitzgerald could report all the income towards his own retirement.

A document filed in the case by O’Shea’s attorney claimed, “Defendant Mark Fitzgerald initiated the entire scheme solely to further enrich himself” and that he, “Conspired to defraud OPERS” .

In a document revealed in court, Brooks explained:

“Mark Fitzgerald approached me last year and informed me that he is looking forward to retiring in 4 years but, he needs to bolster his OPERS pension. I assume most of you realize that the pension is based on the average of your best three years salary. Thus, he asked to be made an employee as opposed to a contractor. He suggested that his and Lynda’s salary be combined thus totally $125,000 per year. As an employee, we need to pay a portion of his OPERS but not all. In addition, he will pick up a portion of his health insurance. In exchange for this, he and Lynda will freeze their salary at this level for the entire four years.”

In the original complaint about the combined salaries, O’Shea’s attorney, Matt Miller-Novak, alleged that even though Linda had retired from her position as economic development director, Mark continued to collect her salary as if his own. He said, “Mark Fitzgerald continued to pay himself the entire package price of $125,000 intended to compensate both Linda and Mark Fitzgerald.” Miller-Novak said that no one on the NCH Council knew that Linda Fitzgerald had resigned. “Instead, he kept quiet and he has been pocketing City funds he is not entitled to. He is abusing his powers, he is misusing City funds, and he is self-serving.”

Nicholas Link is a former Auditor of NCH. When he found out about the combined salaries he filed a complaint with OPERS. The very first person he spoke to after describing specifically what was happening said, “Well, they can’t do that,” said Link. 

O’Shea’s lawsuit claims Mark Fitzgerald gave himself a $41,000 raise, above the $84,000 he was being paid for his City Manager position, and over four years received $120,000 in “ill-gotten gains” from “his fraud and deceit.” 

Link also said on Monday that he has been told by several insiders at NCH that OPERS is now refusing to accept the additional payment that NCH was sending them for the $41,000 income, and is returning the money to NCH. He said that after OPERS studied the facts and did their due-diligence, “Once they determined that Mark was not legitimately making $125,000, they decided would send back the over-payments that represented anything above his $84,000 salary.” Link said that since the OPERS payments were in part deducted from Fitzgerald’s salary, he assumes that NCH would be returning the money to Fitzgerald.

The lawsuit also alleges that NCH Law Director, William Deters directed Linda Fitzgerald to draft a “phony” letter designed to fool OPERS into believing she had resigned but led the NCH Council to believe she was still working. It is alleged, and confirmed by Link that on several occasions, Linda would appear at council or other meetings as if she was still employed by the City.

Also, O’Shea claimed that in 2014, Fitzgerald illegally granted a contract for enforcing the city’s building codes to his friend Gerry Stoker, despite the council voting down the contract. She claimed that Fitzgerald presented a contract to hire Stoker to NCH Council and they voted against it. They wanted competitive bids for the work. Days after he got the no vote, Fitzgerald went ahead and signed a contract with Stoker’s building inspection firm, XPEX. Stoker is a former zoning department head for the City of Loveland.

Both Mark and Linda Fitzgerald were asked to respond to Phelps comment and the allegations made in the O’Shea lawsuit. Mark replied via email saying:

There is no merit to the O’Shea complaint. It is politically motivated designed to tarnish my many years of public service.

NEVER have I been prosecuted for any alleged misconduct.

NEVER did the O’Shea complaint ask for relief on fraudulent conduct.

Attached is the memo from NCH mayor brooks to council of his intent to combine the positions (begin at the third paragraph and please convey it verbatim in your Loveland magazine article)

Council endorsed mayor brooks decision.

Read the attachment HERE: SKM_224e17032114030

On February 13, 2017, the NCH Council voted to settle the outstanding lawsuit just as it was heading to trial. According to the settlement agreement, the City of NCH agrees to never again employ or contract with Mark Fitzgerald including any entity he has an association with in any capacity. The City of NCH also agreed to never again compensate employees beyond what NCH Council appropriates. The City agreed to pay legal fees to O’Shea’s lawyers. The agreement was for a total of $100.000. $75,000 came from NCH coffers and $25,000 was paid by a NCH insurance policy. O’Shea, who only sought injunctive relief, received no money.

NCH Council Member Matt Wahlert voted yes to settle the lawsuit against Fitzgerald. He said in a press release, “What the city did, I believe was wrong and I thought we would lose this case.” 

Link said that to his knowledge, Fitzgerald does not have to return the $120,000 because it wasn’t a stipulation of the settlement agreement. He said that the current majority on NCH council will probably never ask Fitzgerald to return the money paid to him for the services Linda Fitzgerald was not providing. “The Teflon Don strikes again,” is how Link described it.

NCH also hired and paid the attorney that defended Fitzgerald in court. NCH hired a separate law firm to defend itself in the lawsuit.

Matt Wahlert also said, “I felt compelled to settle because I believed the alternative would have been a lengthy and more costly litigation process. A loss by the city would mean much higher legal fees and the distinct possibility of cutting services. I was not prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

 

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The Writer’s Notes:

It has always been the policy of Loveland Magazine to not report when someone has been merely accused of a crime. So, even though many citizens have encouraged us to report the fraud allegations over many years — we have not done so until now. It is our belief that all persons are innocent until “proven” guilty and that everyone deserves their day in court. The case against Mark Fitzgerald never went to trial so Fitzgerald’s guilt or innocence was never determined by a judge or jury. 

Also, of note is that attorneys use a lot of hyperbole in their pleadings to a judge and some of that is reported here. They also know better than the rest of us not to throw around charges haphazardly. They choose their words with caution.

The court case against the Loveland Mayor only became newsworthy when a Loveland citizen wanted to talk about it at a council meeting and wasn’t allowed to do so. Add to that, the Mayor’s angry diatribe directed at Neil Oury for daring to repeat quotes he found in a lawsuit – escalated what had happened to “newsworthy.” 

Add to that, Loveland Magazine believes that the most important thing that ever happens at any city council meeting is when citizens rise to speak what is on their mind. We believe that council must listen, listen with respect, pay attention, and no shuffling papers. When asking voters for their support they told them they would listen to their concerns. Vice-Mayor Settle made this “newsworthy” when she would not let Neil Oury speak his mind and attempted to cover up what had happened to Fitzgerald while employed at NCH. Oury has every right to bring up the subject and no one at the council table should ever censor a citizen’s speech. It’s not Angie Settell’s microphone, podium, council chamber, or city building. 

They were bought and paid for by the people.

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Below is a scanned copy provided to Loveland Magazine of the full remarks Neil Oury wanted to present at the Loveland Council meeting on February 14. Oury marked the words he was able to say in orange. Oury marked “Quotes” he found from other sources, including court documents, in yellow.