Our Elected Officials at the Courthouse have been using their "special reserved" parking spots at Our Courthouse
to display magnetic campaign signs and bumper stickers for months. These are special spots that were recently carved
out of the yard, apparently as part of the last "Courthouse restoration." I wonder how much was used in taxpayer dollars
to carve out these "special" parking spaces that are reserved only for Elected Officials?
A couple days ago, yours truly ran an ad about the ethics we expect from judges and prosecutors. I'm pleased to
announce that as of February 21, 2008, it appears those campaign signs have been taken down.
The people involved include:
- Judge Janelle Haverkamp with 20+ years as a Judge and Prosecutor.
- County Judge Bill Freeman with more than 27 years as a Judge
- Tanya Davis who has at least 12 years of experience as an elected prosecutor and County Attorney. It may be her
office that published the policy that elected officials could use their "specially reserved" taxpayer funded Courthouse parking
spots to display campaign signs.
I'm glad they finally saw the light although with their experience and the offices they hold, they should have known better.
What is the difference between what they did and a candidate putting their campaign signs in the Courthouse yard? Campaigning
on public property, especially when not everyone has equal access is at best unethical and I believe is inconsistent
with our laws. Why should they have this advantage over their Challengers?
The elected officials that did this are the key players in enforcing many of our laws in Cooke County. Did they
think they were above the law? Maybe they thought no ordinary citizen could do anything about it since most of the complaints
would have to go through their office anyway.
I don't think there would have been a problem if they had parked in normal parking spots on the street. Then
everyone would have equal access to the parking spot and the campaign benefits of displaying a campaign sign near the Courthouse.
However, the unrestricted parking spots are less desirable as they are much less noticeable to early voters and people going
into the Courthouse.
In case anyone forgets what was going on before the ad ran, below are the pictures I took on February 14, 2008. Lest
anyone thinks this is the only day this happened, pictures were taken on several other days as well.
