City alderman quits council over water issue
Wendell Stevens, attempting to explain away Bruce Laslie's mismanagement of personal finances Thursday, Oct. 14
LAWRENCEVILLE—Reports of the resignation of Lawrenceville Alderman Wendell Stevens from the city council have been confirmed.
Stevens has been a Lawrenceville city council member for at least two terms and his time on the board has been marked by continued support of Mayor Brian Straub’s somewhat flaky administration and method of running the city.
In the past, it’s been Stevens who has taken Straub’s disjointed, haphazard elocutions and converted them into something resembling coherent speech, as Stevens is considerably more articulate than the mayor.
However, at the October city council meeting (Oct. 14), Stevens was right there on the level with Straub, shucking and jiving so much in an effort to cover for errant waterboy Bruce Laslie’s recent badness (not paying his own water bill at his restaurant and apartments, which, we’re hearing, had reached an excess of $3,000 over several months) that to the untrained eye, it was hard to tell who was who…except Stevens looks considerably older than Straub, probably having aged over time doing that kind of shucking and jiving.
In fact, there were times that Stevens made even less sense than Straub…and it’s all because of the coverup they felt was necessitated to preserve waterboy’s job, as citizens were there demanding it be terminated.
As it turns out, Waterboy Laslie is the only one certified to dump certain chemicals into Lawrenceville’s water supply, which necessitates such chemicals because the stuff is contaminated with fertilizers, resulting in a high nitrate level. Apparently he is the only one, too, who is qualified to run whatever treatment processes Lawrenceville does in order to remove/reduce the high mineral content in the water (iron and manganese, which isn’t necessarily bad to drink, but in conjunction with the stuff needed to remove/reduce nitrates, as well as to ‘purify’ the water, it stains clothing in the laundry). So the city is wont to get rid of the little miscreant because it would be expensive to replace him, simple as that.
The local msm newspapers generally give an errant public employee a pass…and attempted to this time. However, Disclosure was there, and covered it accurately, and they couldn’t sweep what was happening under the rug. As a result, there’s a front-page article about it in this month’s issue, with plenty of exposure.
And it was exposure, our junior team heard last night at the Lawrence County board meeting, that prompted Stevens to throw in the towel and quit as city alderman.
There’ll be more on this coming up in the Nov. 10 issue…and perhaps here online in between, depending on how rough it gets (there are, after all, five more alderman on the council!) Be sure to pick one up, and see just how hard times can get in Lawrence County…
Short URL: http://www.disclosurenewsonline.com/?p=4977
Posted by Jack Howser
on Oct 21 2010. Filed under Lawrence.
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It is strange that several people I know who didn’t recieve their monthly water bill would find their water being shut off in a matter of days for a bill that wasn’t over $30 yet this one can run up a bill over $3,000 and it is overlooked?
Yeah and did you see where flaky Rachel Gard was bitching because late bills were “private information”? I wish we would have been there; I would have stood up and explained to her that anytime a PUBLIC utility has to go into the bill collection business, those delinquent bills become, well…PUBLIC. It’s frightening how these people who are young enough to be our children are so dense about how things work.
Well…I guess the point of this story is that they DON’T work in Lawrenceville…hence the problems they’re now having….but at least Wendell Swindle is gone.
Maybe there IS something in the water in Lawrence County.
Iron, manganese, boron, toluene and more arsenic than the EPA considers non-actionable.
Arsenic toxicity makes people crazy. I know from experience. Those poor people drinking Lawrenceville water are doomed. Jamie Brunson needs to become a water seller with his new well.
I used to live in Texas City Texas, surrounded by petro-chemical plants. In my neighborhood there were many people in their 80s and 90s that had lived there since WW2 or before.
Why are there so many people dying in Lawrence County in their 30s, 40s, and 50s? Some blame the old Texaco refinery but I have to wonder….
I don’t think it’s Texaco tho, D. I think it’s the agriculture chemicals, and the oilfield stuff, too. They bitched to high heaven over in Sumner about Jamie drilling his well there, but his water is EIGHT TIMES softer (fewer minerals) than anything in the wellfield outside Lawrenceville. There’s not the seepage next to the wellhead at his location in Sumner like there is in Lawrenceville.
And then there’s Birds-Pinkstaff that has an unusually high amount of arsenic. You know we believe that’s what killed Nancy Spillman…they got their water from B-P. I talked to the people at the Illinois Water Survey about a year before she died, when Hutsonville was going to be a water provider for B-P, and IWS said that there is an arsenic deposit running like a vein of coal through that part of the county. People just don’t have any idea.
@Ang…you’re right that people have no idea about the water they’re drinking. I won’t even pretend to go into this with you because then everyone would know where I’m coming from and it could only cause problems. If I was a much younger woman with my kids still at home, I’d be jumping up and down about the water. But, my kids are gone from the nest and I don’t drink the stuff, I just use it for a shower, washing laundry and the car or house or whatever. I do water my garden when necessary and often wonder if that’s even a good idea. I think we might see the day (or you might) when the U.S. may be looking to Canada for it’s fresh water supply. And don’t get me started on that either.
Hope you’re getting the move under-way and all is going good for you and Jack.
Well, we’re IN the farmhouse, spending the night here, if that tells ya anything! But we have no furniture, no piano (Thursday, I think), no crown molding (tomorrow), no wood blinds (tomorrow also) and who KNOWS when the office furniture will be in place, as we are having it constructed, having learned that there’s a guy up in Olney who custom-builds office furniture and since we ran all over timbukthree trying to find “just the right” stuff and failing…we’re willing to sacrifice more time.
And…we have well water here. LOL. Soft, high-quality stuff. I think I’m going to insist Babymomma and the Grandbaybehdoll come live here. Better stuff to grow up on, I believe.
Ang…on the well water, I probably would agree…however I know you’ll continue to have the water tested periodically.
Know all about that moving crap, gal. I don’t evny you in that respect, but sure you’re going to enjoy that new home. Hang in there. It all gets better.
A few notes, from personal experience: Laslie spends more of his water dept time at his restaurant then at the dept. Also makes freqeunt trips to Evansville for shopping on water dept time. Or simply driving around town in his water dept truck, bragging he doesent really do any work. He seems to get a pass from the health dept, the whole restaurant is one big health violation. The apts above the place are way out of code, no smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, or working heat. He hires family members fresh out of jail (meth & domestic violence) for the water dept without publicly posting the job opening, tells others they cant work for the water dept because they aren’t family. Sells alcohol out of the backdoor of the restaurant to friends and family. Don’t dare question him about the water quality problems, they aren’t his fault. His wife works in Straub’s office; Laslie and Straub and good buddies. The mayor doesent seem to have a problem with any of this, for he surely knows about it all…So thats your “Amazing asset to this community” Council Member Curtis. Small town Good-Ol-Boy politics at the expense of the taxpayers. How the head of a public utility could do this and NOT get fired outright is mind-numbing.
Well, add to that this little tidbit that we learned last week: her hubby officer Ryan Curtis gets his water off the same meter for his gym as Laslie’s restaurant and tenants. No wonder it was almost $4,000 in just a few months. That is, assuming people who work out at Curtis’ gym shower afterwards…
Nope, no showers in Curtis’ gym..
Ooh. Stinky.
[...] Part of what might’ve sunk Straub this election was the water debacle in late 2010, and this was the direct and proximate cause of the defeat of one Janice Laslie, who lost in her bid for city clerk. Laslie lost tonight to contender Rodney Nolen for Wagner’s now-vacated position. Of course, under the circumstances of the water debacle, Laslie could have lost to Rod Blagojevich. Nolen, an affable enough guy, will certainly do a better job than Laslie because it’s expected that he will actually pay his water bills, unlike Laslie and her husband Bruce in late 2010. [...]