LETTER: Charges for Toomey’s information were fair

Talk about it

To the Editor:

I attended the chamber-sponsored form at MTI on May 15 which involved school board and county treasurer candidates and a ballot issue regarding a resolution passed by the City Council to change one-way streets to two-way.

I was surprised to hear mayoral candidate Mr. Toomey, who supports keeping the one-way streets, make a statement twice that Mayor Lou Sebert charged him $125 for material he used for his presentation.

I want to make it clear Mr. Toomey agreed to pay the city for these charges when requesting his information; these charge were made by the city, not Lou Sebert, as Mr. Toomey had stated.

Mr. Toomey did not tell the public that he also got nearly equal other information free of charge from the city; however, this information was not used in Mr. Toomey’s presentation, as results were not positive for keeping one-way streets.

The first free information requested by Mr. Toomey was regarding five-year accident statistics, in a square, from Minnesota to Foster and from First to 15th. The results of these 15 streets shows that 33 percent of the accidents involving motorcycles, cyclists and pedestrian happened on Second, Third and Fourth avenues, which are one-way, and when you include all accidents the percentage is 28 percent.

In this same period of time the Police Division issued 239 citations of which 209 were a warning and 30 were tickets. I think it important to realize that First, Fifth and Seventh carry a majority of the traffic moving east and west.

The request for information form used by the city’s Department of Public Safety states there is a $25 per hour charge. Basically, Mr. Toomey got a half-price deal, and I’m not sure if that’s fair for others requesting information.

Tags: election 2012, one way, opinion, updates, letters, streets