Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Councilman “Rusty Towel” Vies Chastises HDN Reporter


The Ever Squirrelly Councilman Vies
goes Bonkers over Bad Press

 Judging from the article in tonight’s Havre Daily “News” and from what we can learn around town Councilman Vies had another mental breakdown and went completely squirrelly at last night’s council meeting.

You may recall that Councilman Vies during the June 20th council meeting told a local motel operation that was complaining about the dirty water turning his linens brown to cure the problem by just buying “rust colored towels”. Unlike most people that get this shabby treatment at council meetings this individual decided to exercise his first amendment rights and commissioned a 4’ x 8’ professionally made sign suggesting that voters “Vote for anybody but” Councilmen Vies, Kaftan and Kaul at the next election. Vies, apparently still stinging from the heat he has received for his stupid comment a month ago, attempted to defray the heat by casting the blame on HDN reporter Zack White and Councilman Brekke as they “blew this way out of proportion.” In addition Vies chastised Councilman Brekke who is the representative of the Ward in which the motel is located because, according to Vies, he shouldn’t have told the motel owner what the response of the council was to his inquiry about what could be done to rectify his dirty linen problem.

This is not the first time people have come to the council with a problem only to be turned away with a glib or catty comment instead of addressing their individual issues. The difference is that this time a dirty water problem affects every single person in the Havre water system and hardly a soul we have talked to have found the Vies comment all that amusing. The HDN reported that Vies insisted on making it known that his “rusty towel” comment on June 20th brought fits of “widespread” laughter not only from fellow council members but also those in the audience. So apparently we are all to think that witty comments made by council members to constituents with needs should be just taken in stride as part of the city government “management process.”

For just a moment let’s take Vies at his word that his degrading comment was in fact just a miserably failed attempt at humor and he is being unjustly raked over the coals and consider just the facts of the matter;

  1. June 20th a problem with dirty water damaging linens is brought to the council 
  2. June 26th the Corrector reported that the City Water Department had increased the Chlorine and chemical levels to a point that rust was being leached into the water. The city said they were “looking into a solution” even though we were told by others that the City official knew the cause of the problem but refused to issue the proper treatment orders because of the cost involved with making the water pure 
  3. July 6th we reported that a Havre businessman erected a sign telling people not to again vote for Vies and his cohorts because of the idiotic response he received from the council 
  4. Today is July 20th, one full month after the problem was brought to the council and as of tonight not one single thing has been done to rectify the issue. What has happened is that everyone is ignoring the problem hoping nature will clear up the problem without causing the City to expend any money. Also Mayor Dim, the witty council, and the water department have used all their energy running around playing the you said – he said game in an attempt to divert everyone’s attention from the crude coming out of their water spigot.

Mighty fine civil “servants" wouldn’t you say? Perhaps the sign is right on message

14 comments:

  1. I fully agree that the water in town is awful and something needs to be done, and "Geri" does have a long history of putting his foot in his mouth.

    I don't care for much about what goes on in City Council, but do yourself a favor and grow up. Calling people names like "Mayor Dim" is sophomoric at best and only makes you look dim, not Tim.

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  2. You left out one fact in your time line of events. When the sign went up the afternoon of the 6th Jeff Jenson from public works ran right down and demanded the sign be taken down immediately or he was going to have the city crew do it and cut it up into itty bits. Story has it he even threatened to kick the old man’s ass that put it up. The police were even summoned when he refused to remove his sign. How is that for city service?

    I wonder why the sign is still up. Might it have something to do with the city blowhards finally meeting up with someone they can’t intimidate even with threats of bodily harm?

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  3. Maybe our fine Brian "Oscar" Schweitzer should bring his academy award act on the road up here to Havre to call the City on the carpet like he did ExxonMobil!

    Afterall maybe he should break ties with the Mayor and his gang of fools up here like he did the folks in Billings because the city isn't being "transparent" enough for his highnss Brian.

    All this drama is worthy of an acting award, and here I though Pam was the actress in the family! Jerry--if you want this to go away, perhaps you should stop bringing it up!!!!

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  4. Havre may have moved on from jeris stupid comment.

    However, with this latest manuever Havre will not forget what a complete jackass he is and will continue to be.

    He stupid comment does show his true colors of how he actually feels about Havre businesses.

    The only thing better would be if he tried to remove the sign at Char's himself and somebody could snap a photo of it.

    Havre has found its villiage idiot and he is on the council.

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  5. Oh, Deconstructor, I don't normally agree with you on this blog, but that was funny and you're a class act!! Luv ya!

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  6. No matter what antics have taken place the end result is that nothing has been done about fixing our water problem. Don’t you suppose that’s what our councilman Veis should be worrying about instead of if the newspaper reporter made him look ignorant?



    And as for Mayor Tim

    He is the worst mayor we have had since the city of Havre was incorporated so contrary to what fity thinks Mayor Dim is quite the appropriate label. If he didn’t spend all his time at the county on coffee runs and lounging at home maybe he could get to the bottom of the dirty water. Isn’t that why he is mayor?

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  7. Freddy you know why Public works sidekick Jeff Jenson and the gang at city hall took such offence to the hotel guy’s sign don’t you?

    Gerry and the good ole boys at city hall are all big party and golfing buddies. Gerry has appointed public works director Dave Peterson, deputy PW director Jeff Jenson and city clerk Lowell Swenson to serve on the Bear Paw credit union board. Now when they go on golfing excursions disguised as out of town Credit Union conferences they can expense off their golf trips. This also brings up another question. Should the public works director and his deputy be taking the same days off so there is no one left in the office for emergencies? Where I work we have to have at least one management on the job at all times and we adjust our time off accordingly

    I do think it is a little messed up that a city employee would threaten anyone over something like a sign. Has anything been done about Jeff’s threats?

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  8. My mother came to visit me from out of town, went to use the restroom and yelled "someone forgot to flush" So i went in with her, flushed the toilet, still looked like it was full of piss, and i said, welcome to Havre, Mom.

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  9. Former Councilwoman Emily Mayer has a comment on the Havre Daily website article saying this problem with the water has been going on for 5-6 years. I am glad she pointed that out and wouldn’t you think that after 6 years we would have some answers if anyone actually gave a tinkers damn about our water?

    Also if the public works and water dept have had 6 years to find a solution and have failed isn’t it time to hire some new competent management?

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  10. The answer is simple.... Just quit paying your water bills until the matter is fixed. If your cable TV wasn't working, would you pay your bill? If your phone wasn't working, would you pay your bill? Look people, we are simply not getting what we are paying for. You would demand credit from your cable company, your phone company, your power company, why should this be any different? If everyone refused to pay their water bill for a few months, I wonder how long it would take the city to get the problem fixed. What are they going to do shut off the water to 10,000 people? It took the city months to fix the potholes. The streets still aren't swept up after all the winter sanding. So honestly, how long would it take them to shut off water to 4000 properties? Years?

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  11. That is interesting that Jenson threatens the motel guy over something as stupid as a sign and then Superman points out Jenson and the city crew are on the golfing team with Veis. The light finally comes on as to what the problem is.

    As far as I know nothing was ever said to Jenson about his threats to the motel owner. I would think a “normal” mayor would have at least called him in for a talking to. Don’t these city employees work at the will of the Mayor? Things seem a little too cozy down in that cesspool we call city hall
    We need to end this nonsense and vote to hire a trained professional city manager. What do we have to do to do away with the Mayor and city council and go to a city manager form of government?

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  12. You people posting on here should have a little compassion for Mr. Veis.

    It is obvious that he is going through some trauma in his life and needs your support and understanding. Most people with mental issues can be helped with therapy. Since his friend and fellow councilman Mr. Kaftan is a retired psychologist perhaps he should take Mr. Veis on as his special project and it would behoove the rest of you to end this nonsense and give Mr. Veis an outreach of friendship instead of coming here to poke fun at the man.

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  13. I agree with the comments that have suggested changing city government from a mayor system to a hired city manager so we at the very least know he has passed an IQ test to get out of college. How do we make that happen?

    While we are at it we need to consolidate Hill county in with the city to end the fighting that goes on there and the duplication of services

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  14. I mentioned your comment about going with a city manager at work today and the majority of the guys I talked to like the idea. I don’t know much about how it works but it can’t be any worse than what we are now doing.

    I also liked Suzyq’s idea about getting Mr. Veis some psychiatric help ROFLMAO Does the city’s insurance cover that?

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