County Board sustains Abele’s veto of decorative paneling for O’Donnell parking garage

By Zach W On April 29, 2011 · 4 Comments · In Local Politics, News

Earlier today I wrote about County Executive Chris Abele’s veto of a measure approved by the County Board that would have spent $1.2 million on decorative glass and aluminum panels for the exterior of the O’Donnell Park garage, and I noted that supervisors had supported the measure by a vote of 13-5, making an override of Abele’s veto seem likely.

However, in a vote to override Abele’s veto of the $1.2 million decorative panels, the County Board voted 11-8 to sustain Abele’s veto. Among those voting to sustain Abele’s veto were supervisors Eyon Biddle, Gerry Broderick, Lynne DeBruin, Marina Dimitrijevic, Nikiya Harris, Jason Haas and John Weishan, all of whom voted in favor of the decorative panels just last week. Asked why he ~~flip-flopped~~ went against his previous vote in favor of the panels to instead sustain County Executive Abele’s veto, Supervisor Haas said, “my constituents asked me to support the veto; I honored their wishes.”

One supervisor who stuck by her original vote was Supervisor Pat Jursik, who admitted that the $1.2 million of taxpayer funds on decorative glass and aluminum panels would serve no purpose except to increase the public’s “perception of safety” at O’Donnell Park.

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4 Responses to County Board sustains Abele’s veto of decorative paneling for O’Donnell parking garage

JCG says:

April 29, 2011 at 8:41 am

Good on them. Nothing wrong with changing a vote.

The way to “improve the public’s perception of safety” is to, you know, have safe structures. To me that’d mean spending that money on structural inspections and structural maintenance, not architectural gobbledy-gook.
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- Zach says:
  
  April 29, 2011 at 2:34 pm
  
  Agreed.
  
  My use of the term “flip-flop” was inarticulate; I typically think of flip-flops as being reserved for elected officials who change their votes out of expediency without actually listening to their constituents, and in Haas’ case he made it pretty clear his vote changed based on the wishes of his constituents.
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Zunnoab says:

May 6, 2011 at 1:19 am

This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. Veto wasteful spending while not towing the right wing theocrat line on policy.
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- blah says:
  
  May 6, 2011 at 1:19 am
  
  Bleh, I didn’t post with my correct name. It really doesn’t matter though.
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