By: Diane Benjamin
Yes, I’m defending Tari.
One very frequent guy showed up at Public Comment last night – Scott Stimeling. (Spelling may be wrong)
I have to correct one thing he said, Tari did not pay back the City for his girlfriends ticket to Japan because he got caught. He paid it back somewhere between a few weeks and a month.
That doesn’t change the fact that charging the ticket on a City credit card was illegal. It violates the Illinois Constitution for the simple reason that citizens or other government officials shouldn’t have to track every charge and make sure it is paid back. Imagine thousands of elected officials or government employees doing the same thing. Theft of your tax dollars would be rampant. Therefore, using government’s credit for personal expenses is not allowed.
Then State’s Attorney Jason Chambers failed to prosecute Tari and passed the case off to the Appellate Court Prosecutor who also failed to prosecute, even after asking the Illinois State Police for more investigation.
Public commenters need to have their facts straight, Scott also said I am a Bloomington resident. New Mayor Mboka has asked the staff to prepare a statement to be read before public comment about being civil. Let’s stick to the facts folks.
Scott’s comment:
I agree with Mr. Stimeling! “Attorney Jason Chambers failed to prosecute Tari” WHY not??
The girlfriend paid the city. I was personally at a Friday meeting which she stated “maybe I should get a refund” after Tari spoke of meeting with the city legal. Which they did another excuse that she was on the trip to help promote something I would have to dig up my audio of that meeting to get the exact wording. So, she piped in with the refund comment. See the both did not have enough credit to charge the ticket so they had the assistant to Tari do it on HER City of Bloomington card. Which David Hales most likely was NOT informed of till after the fact. See they were in a rush after attempting to book on their own and the sale was rejected because it exceeded their credit limit on both Tari and the now ex-girlfriend. They had a mortgage together so that is why when they split Tari on his own could not afford the house on the east side.
He probably could have covered the mortgage. It was the cost of city services, taxes and real estate taxes that put him way over. Welcome to real life munchkin.