Burlington City Council voted 4-1 against gun ordiance; mayor having a meltdown; The Hawk Eye and KBUR sits silent on the issue

On Monday night, the Burlington City Council voted down the gun ordinance that was written up by Burlington Police Chief Doug Beaird.

The only person who voted favor of the ordinance was councilman Bob Fleming.

Before the vote was called for, Mayor Shane McCampbell stated that he was in favor of the ordinance during the meeting.  He made multiple statements in previous meetings as well as television and phone interviews/broadcasts.

http://wqad.com/2014/07/07/burlington-considering-toy-gun-regulations/
http://www.iowagunowners.org/legislation/iowa/item/81-burlington-ia-city-council-stopped-by-gun-owners-for-now

Mayor McCampbell denies that toy guns were to be part of the ordinance despite the wording that was made for the ordinance reading.  He became very animated and angry during portions of the meeting due to the overwhelming emails, phone calls, and Facebook posts being made about him, the council, and the police chief.  That includes about the mayor doing something unprofessional.

An editorial in The Hawk Eye discussed about the illegal misconduct each of the council members have been doing for violating the Iowa open meetings laws.  They are believed to have been committing walking quorums.  Its currently being looked into.

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Alison-072114
http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/OMA-censure-resolution-072214

When someone spoke about Facebook-related content, Mayor McCampbell increased his anger and frustration towards the person(s) involved and stating that they are running their mouths.  He even goes further into saying the person who posted something on Facebook isn't from Burlington and that he incites in a threatening message about dealing with him one on one. 

He insists that its nothing more than propaganda and spreading of misinformation.  Doug Beaird also agrees.

Here is the entire session of the ordinance discussion during Monday night's meeting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVg1cPvSK4c

The resolution for the voting as well as the numerous comments being made within the 40 minutes worth of discussion in relation to the ordinance was not covered by The Hawk Eye as well as KBUR.  The only time the ordinance was mentioned was in The Hawk Eye.  There was only a small blurb indicating that the ordinance was discussed at the meeting.

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Censure-vote-WEB-072114
http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Council-precede-072114
http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/OMA-censure-resolution-072214

The resolution in regards of the ordinance may not be finished.  It may be quietly being rewritten by the Burlington Police Chief.  It may be likely the ordinance will return to a vote on an updated version.

The Hawk Eye deletes original-titled article from its page and renames it for final piece.

I tried accessing this link earlier because it was listed as being the most emailed item at the time.
http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/boat-case-073113

When I clicked on it, I was given this error message:

From further investigation, I came across the original name of the article.

The article that appeared two days ago was given a different title.  Its not clear whether the content within the article was modified or not.

The replaced title is called Crash testimony mixed

Stupid Saturday: 10/27/2012

Thought I missed the day to post for Saturday?  Well, here is today's entry.

The story:

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Girlfriend-beating-10-26-12

My take on it:

That woman who attacked all those people must be pretty damn strong and well coordinated when it came to attacking and being intoxicated at the same time.

I'm confused why the hell there were two underage children out at this area at around 3:30 in the morning.  Not only it was passed their curfew, they weren't allowed to be at Sam's Speakeasy.  Sam's Speakeasy is basically a combination of a bar and a strip club.   Minors are prohibited from entering.  For some reason, the 14-year-old daughter and the boy were in the area and that Murphy tried pushing the daughter into the closet, which had to be in the strip club.

Either the children were there because their mother was there or they were doing some sexual-related acts.  I think its most likely the first choice.

Why in the hell did she pursue to attack the officer?  Was she trying to make herself look intelligent?

The story:

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Attack-102312

My take on it:

Talk about one hell of a dysfunctional family.  I'm curious as to what had started the conflict in the first place. 

Why the hell did a man attack his own sister by punching him in the face, especially in the middle of the night?

Why did it escalate of having Sawaan hitting Robert repeatedly with the bat, then attacking his vehicle?

Overall, they are all in the wrong, maybe including Leanna as well.  Leanna could have done something that wasn't listed in the story.  Then again, it had to be something serious enough so that she would have been charged for it.  Since it wasn't listed in the paper about her being charged, it may be more likely that she didn't do anything wrong and that she was attacked by her violent brother.

The Hawk Eye didn't submit article about shooting in today's newspaper

I checked into today's newspaper to see if the shooting was published in the newspaper.  There wasn't anything published.

The website still hasn't updated to the incident.  This is a snapshot taken at 5:57 PM today.

The Eastern Iowa Fireground complained about the lack of updates presented on their website.  They weren't sure whether it was presented into the newspaper or not.  The answer is that it was never published.

The Hawk Eye and KBUR failed to warn locals about shooting

During the shooting, The Hawk Eye website never reported it at all!  This was taken at 12:00 AM this morning.

The Eastern Iowa Firegrounds facebook page complained about The Hawk Eye about them not updating this information on their website when it was happening!

Not only The Hawk Eye failed to deliver the information, KBUR was floating the same boat as well!

Because of this, there was a lack of information being provided quickly enough to alert the public that live in the area about the dangerous gunman.  The only way people would find out about it is if they were informed by the Eastern Iowa Fireground Facebook page, a police scanner, or the word of mouth.

Two people are currently hospitalized.  More could have been in danger due to lack of information that could be provided to them on time.  Both the radio and newspaper industries has the best way of alerting the public through their website and on radio.  It's sad to think that these two areas aren't responsible enough in alerting the public in time.

The Hawk Eye planning to start website subscription services on November 12

I came across to a column in today's article from The Hawk Eye.

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Delaney-101312


I find this rather annoying for them to do this.  We have to pay for every access of news on their website through the use of 'subscription services'.  The writer of the article basically compares The Hawk Eye with The Wall Street Journal and how The Hawk Eye should start doing subscription services despite individuals who can hardly afford anything in this town already.  That means no one without a free subscription cannot access the website, except for subscriptions and searching for an article that would be later used to be paid for (with only have one access use of it before you have to pay again to access the link).

Many people in the city cannot afford to pay for a subscription so they rely on the website.  Others use the website because they don't want to pay an extra subscription to their service because we are paying for the paper version and would like to have a electronic copy of an article or set of articles as well.

How much is a subscription?  How long would it last?  Would it grant access to past articles or do we have to pay extra to obtain each article?

I don't believe The Hawk Eye is doing this for the general public's favor.  I believe they are doing it for their own corporate greed.  Removing every access point for people who want to read the news for free is wrong.

Stupid Sunday: 9/30/2012

Its interesting given the fact that my first article that I was going to talk about was never published in The Hawk Eye.  I'm only assuming that the paper is covering up much of this ordeal.

http://theintelhub.com/2012/09/27/9-year-old-autistic-child-beat-up-by-police-then-arrested-for-aggravated-battery-to-a-police-officer/

My take on it:

First, my take on the fact that The Hawk Eye never covered this police brutality story about a local child that was assaulted by an officer.  Given the fact that this has been publicized for a few days, there is no excuse why this story was never run.  

For the teachers that reported it, that was stupid of them to do.  If the kid has a tendency in doing that, how did the teachers use to take care of the issue in the past?  Calling for an officer for help is downright idiotic.  Find a different way to deal with a student rather than calling the police on them for something like this.  Hell, this is even a special education class, which that stuff may happen in the past or even the present with other students.  What's worse out of all of this is the fact that the teachers never told the mother about what had happened to his son, where he was at, etc.  The mother would be worried sick if no one gives her any notice of his whereabouts.

As for Police Chief Robert Copley, he's a complete idiotic moron when it came to attacking the kid like that and then having the kid go through all that mess.

I hope to God this piece of filth of an officer is punished for his actions.  I hope the mother files a suit against this idiot of an officer.

If you feel like telling this officer your thoughts and opinions of the situation, his contact is found on the Qunicy Police Department's website.  http://www.ci.quincy.il.us/police/contact.htm

Story:

Here's the article from The Hawk Eye.  http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Vehicular-homcide-021312

My take on it:

Levi did a stupid thing, thinking that he would get away with it scott free.  Not only he was trying to outrun the cops, he also risked the lives of others on the road.  He even had his best friend killed as a result.  

After reading the hearing information from the article, I thought it was best that he was convinced rather than running free in fear that he would do it again.  

Stupid Saturday: 9/29/2012

Story:

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/baby-ran-over-by-mom-in-lee-county-092912

My take on it:

What I don't understand is this: How could a mother forget their child outside nearby a vehicle if she was leaving him/her alone on the property?  There were no details about the father or anyone else that would have watched this child properly.  Not only that, she didn't bring the child with him seeing that she already knows that this kid can walk.  Why leave the child alone on the property if there was no one that could prevent the incident or if a kidnapping were to happen?

Another thing that I was thinking was why she wasn't looking behind her as she was backing up?  Was she in a hurry?  We don't know the answers to these questions, but its a tragic that a mother of her age was too irresponsible to take care of a child.

I'm betting that Department of Human services would  be involved after this incident was published in the paper.  After all, the mother has another child that she is taking care of.

Story: 

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/custom-rotom-scam-070512

My take on it:

I don't understand how the mother was able to detect that the loan the daughter was looking at was fake, but didn't take the $1500 scam seriously.  Having a scam asking to pay for $1500 worth of items first is one of the many red flags that would have been obvious that it was fake.

What I don't understand here is the fact that the daughter believes that she didn't provide the scammers any personal information to the online website.  That is total bullshit in her part.  She had to communicate to them in some manner in order to share her service that she had received, not to mention had to share her address in which the check had came into their mailbox later in the month!  The picture above even has the address to the person it belongs to.  She had to give them an address, name, and other information in order for them to physically receive the check.  I don't see the reason why the daughter is making this excuse.  Maybe she doesn't want to be the fault of everything that she had done incorrectly.

Where would the information go?  It would be stored and be used to advertise more spam to this student, not to mention that her information could be used in fraudulent uses.  Not only that information is collected by the victim themselves, the website can even steal her credit card information that is stored on the computer.  Seeing that she and the mother doesn't know beans about security and spam websites, it wouldn't be a surprise that their credit card accounts are being used by other scammers.

I'm curious where the hell she had received the $1500 within the month to use to pay for purchases in the first place!  Did her mother give her the money willingly or did the daughter have money from somewhere?  Its unknown from the article, but it raises questions to where the daughter was able to get the money from to spend on something that she ironically needed money for in her student loans and for a student loan.

I think the both of them need to do is this:  Either stay off the computer or find computer security classes.  Research websites effectively and properly before making stupid judgements like that again.  Find work out in the real world in the local area.  Its not hard to go to a business and pick up an application. Online jobs are the biggest scams on the face of the Earth and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Neighborhood Watch

Recently, an article was published by The Hawk Eye about neighborhood watches and how they are becoming more ineffective in the area.  The article's title seems to insist that the neighborhood watch is defeated.

http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/Neighborhood-Watch-071212

While there are many reasons why neighborhood watches are failing, there are still other factors in play as to why the neighborhood watches aren't holding up.

Many neighbors are often unreliable or too busy:

Living in an town with severe inflation for more than 40 years has created many individuals to either leave the city or stay behind and work their butts off to make ends meat. This can go with the factor of which people are constantly moving away, thereby leaving houses open to someone new.  

When someone new comes along, it would be difficult to earn their trust and become reliable or not to help support the cause.  Since crime in this town has been rising and new individuals are moving in from another state, its difficult to know whether the neighbor has a clean-slate record or just got out of jail for beating someone up.  

Too much crime is happening all at once; police aren't reliable enough to handle the situation properly:

Another factor that I see as to why neighborhood watches are failing is because criminal activities have been constantly increasing.  There is a scarcity of individuals being caught who have committed illegal acts. 

This is often due to the lack of funding, training and apathy from the Burlington Police Department and its affecting the way they are catching criminals.   

For example, officers usually unwillingly pursue someone to the extreme of arresting an individual, like looking into surveillance tapes or releasing the tapes to the public to help identify the criminals.  This also includes high speed chases.  

Without proper cooperation with law enforcement, neighborhood watches would be as useless as tits on a bull.  

Officer Grimsaw is incorrect when it comes to limited resources.  They have plenty of officers.  IF they are willing to do neighborhood watches, they can cover a small portion of an area for a period of time followed by the next new area.  The problem is many of the officers aren't willing to do that and that they want to instead do as little work as possible.  That way they would be paid just as much as if they were to do the extra work.  I don't see in buying three new squad cars would mean they are lacking resources. 

Solution: 

The only realistic solution in dealing with criminals breaking into ones home, mugging ones self or any other activity is by owning a firearm with proper licensing.

Another solution is moving out of Burlington and West Burlington completely.  

There have been plenty of reports of thefts and muggings going on in the city that are getting away with stealing one's things.  Criminals do this day and night without any fear of officers patrolling the streets regularly,  like Osborn Street, GreenWay, or even South Hill.

Police are out manned and ill-trained to find a good chunk of criminals involved in the city to put behind bars.