Bob Bostock, Springwood Drive
I was disappointed, but not surprised, by the response of my Democratic council campaign opponents to the commitment of my running mates and I to promptly disclose the names and the amounts of every contribution we receive for our council campaign (on our Web site www.citizens4lawrence.com). Unfortunately, our opponents’ response to every effort we’ve made to provide voters with a clean campaign has been the sort of petty posturing that turns so many people off to politics.
Last summer, when we asked our Democratic opponents to join us in signing a Clean Campaign Pledge as a sign of bipartisan civic and community responsibility, they first called our idea "silly," but then decided they should sign something — but not the pledge we proposed (even though it was developed by a non-partisan public policy institute). They couldn’t go along with us, they had to sign a different pledge.
Now, when we asked them to join us in going beyond what the law requires by disclosing the name and amount of every contribution they receive, they instead come up with a thousand feeble excuses why what we’re doing isn’t good enough — even while they are hiding the identity of the source of much of their campaign cash by not disclosing anything about many, if not most, of their donors.
We shouldn’t forget that our opponents are on record as wanting to pay for their campaigns with our property taxes. Of course, when their plan came in for public scrutiny, the committee they appointed to develop this scheme suspended its activity until after the election, when the voters wouldn’t have a chance to vote out the incumbents behind this ill-advised idea. So much for giving the voters a choice.
This is what 12 years of single-party rules gets you, people who automatically attack any idea they haven’t thought of first and who act like they can get away with anything, because they think the voters aren’t paying attention.
I have talked to countless numbers of Lawrence residents in recent weeks and I keep hearing one thing: it’s time for a change. That’s why I’m running for council. It’s time to restore accountable, capable, responsible government to Town Hall.
Bob Bostock is a Republican running for Town Council.
