"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Matthew 16:26
Minister Paul Bateman, the Democratic City-County Councillor who broke party rank to give approval to Mayor Greg Ballard's short-sighted and short-monied fifty-year parking lease to ACS, might as well vote with Ballard and the Republican caucus for the remainder of his short time in office in exchange for a job with the City or with a city contractor because this is almost certainly his last term.
Steve Talley, the former council president who resigned the District 11 seat, which Bateman assumed, to take a job in the Department of Public Safety in the Peterson Administration in 2005, has decided he'd like his seat back. Needless to say, party faithful and elected officials in Lawrence Township are strongly supportive. Talley already did an impressive amount of door-to-door for other Democratic candidates in 2010, so he's undoubtedly reconnected with many of his constituents.
In his short time on the council, Bateman had already stained the Democratic Party's brand when, in late 2009, a bankruptcy trustee sought a nearly $1.3 million judgment against Bateman and others for allegedly using money, or authorizing the use of such monies, from the Russell Foundation for personal expenses, such as clothing, dental work, and purchase of a fleet of vehicles. Bateman was never charged criminally, and he made the right decision to step down from the Council's Ethics Committee when the investigation was ongoing. But I never understood how someone could be so integral to an organization while knowing so little about expenses of over half of its total donations toward non-charity related activities.
Moreover, that cloud was hardly one the party needed hanging over it while it was trying to contend that the GOP had bred a "culture of corruption" via Tim Durham, Lincoln Plowman, and Carl Brizzi.
In the interest of full disclosure, when I served as campaign manager for Pam Carter's attorney general race in 1992, Paul Bateman was one of the first people on board. Bateman was working with the UAW then out of Anderson, he was very helpful to our effort, and I've liked him personally since then. In fact, even today, if I saw Councillor Bateman on the street, I'd shake his hand and wish him well.
But not as a councillor.
