Ben 'Son of Carty' Konop has now officially reached scumbag status in addition to being an idiot. Konop must be taking thug lessons from his pals in the federal government. What an embarrassment Konop has rapidly become for Toledo and Lucas County.
To me, Konop is making slanderous-like statements. Konop is exploiting a tragedy, the destruction of a home, to attack one of his opponents. These pathetic actions by Konop seem like obvious violations of the clean campaign pledge.
Jun 19, 2009 WTOL story Konop blames hydrant failures on Bell
Toledo Blade stories :
- Jun 19, 2009 - Toledo once had, gave up color coding for hydrants
- Jun 18, 2009 - Toledo firefighters didn't have map showing water supply
- Jun 10, 2009 - Homeowners blame faulty hydrants for loss of house
From the Jun 19, 2009 Blade story :
“Immediate action is needed to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and the community deserves answers from Mr. Bell and others as to why this happened in the first place,” Mr. Konop said, and “why Mr. Bell did not address these issues when he ran the fire department.”
Last night Mr. Bell said this was not an issue during his 17 years as Toledo’s fire chief. “I do not remember as chief of the department having that issue because I would have addressed it. It was not presented to myself and none of my staff brought it to my attention,” he said. Mr. Bell became chief in 1990 and stepped down in 2007 to become state fire marshal.
He recalls the conversion from the former yellow color to green in Mayor Finkbeiner’s first term, and the opposition of the fire department. “I had absolutely zero to do with the changing of the color of the hydrants. That was made above my head as fire chief. The fire service itself was extremely resistant and it still went off. I made statements to that, but it was aesthetic and that was the direction it was going in and it didn’t make any difference what the fire chief or anybody else said about it,” Mr. Bell said.
Retired District Chief Ron Sturgill said the color coding was in use when he retired in 1986, and believes it was until the hydrants were ordered repainted by Mayor Finkbeiner. Neither Mr. Finkbeiner nor Robert Reinbolt, the mayor’s chief of staff, returned calls from The Blade seeking comment about the growing controversy.
Toledo has 23 miles of 4-inch mains among its more than 1,100 miles of water mains. The standard for new subdivisions is 8-inch diameter water pipes.So Ben 'Son of Cary' Konop needs to be attacking and investigating his mentor, Carty Finkbeiner.
Current Toledo Fire Chief Mike Wolever said all 12,000 fire hydrants are inspected twice a year. I think he also said the water line serving the fire hydrant in question is over 90-years-old. The city has old, crumbling infrastructure underground. But downtown Toledo will have a brand new arena opening this fall, so all is well, and that's what Konop believes when Konop said last summer:
"The fate of our region, in large part, depends on the future of downtown."
So you see, those homeowners who lost their home due to old piping should quit being so negative and relish in the fact that the city will have a new downtown show-piece that will help revitalize the entire region. Only people living in fantasy land believe the last part of the previous sentence.
By the way, the county led the development of the downtown Toledo arena project. Konop is a county commissioner. So using Konop's warped thinking, Konop is to be blamed for the destruction of that home because Konop's downtown Toledo arena support distracted Toledo government from REAL priorities and REAL projects.
Important, underground projects are not as sexy to government officials as shiny, irrelevant, above ground structures like arenas and stadiums. Look at Detroit and Cleveland to see what I mean.
More from one of the Blade stories:
By the time firefighters arrived at the house, not only had the flames spread vertically and horizontally throughout the walls of the structure, but they had crept up into the attic, Chief Wolever said. Firefighters understand the difficulties that arise when dealing with a four-inch main, the chief said, and by the time help arrived, the fire was at a fairly advanced stage.
Had the fire department been notified earlier, he said, the residence might have been saved.
Jun 16, 2009 WTOL story Faulty fire hydrant discussed at meeting on why home burned
Other recent Konop clean campaign violations:
Jun 21, 2009 - Toledo Blade - 4-inch water mains dot Toledo, pose peril to residents on those streets - 2% of city's lines too small to fight fires
Carty in CYA mode
Jun 23, 2009 - Toledo Blade - Mayor taps panel to review Westmoreland fire :
On the panel are Doni Miller, former president of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority board of directors, Douglas Nims, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toledo, and William Kramer, director of fire service at the University of Cincinnati, who was recently employed by the city of Sylvania to study its fire department.
"As the [Barbi and Herman] Harrison home was destroyed by fire, and there have been questions raised regarding the adequacy of water provided to extinguish the blaze, it is very important to clarify and answer all questions regarding the unfortunate incident," Mr. Finkbeiner said.
Their report is expected within 14 days. "I have no reason to be suspicious of any aspect of the data received to date," the mayor said. "However, this three-person panel will review the matter in detail and provide a summary report."
Fire officials have said responding crews probably did not know that the hydrant to which they connected to extinguish the blaze was on a 4-inch water main.Why didn't fire officials know? Well, from the Jun 19, 2009 Blade story linked to further up:
Clearly, Carty is upset at the possibility that he is partly or maybe largely responsible for the fire officials being hampered in doing their job. First, Carty has had many years to get the old, small water lines replaced if he had focused on important city infrastructure projects. Second, it's been alleged that Carty ordered the color-coded fire hydrants to be painted the same color.
It seems Carty has created this panel to clear his name. Ben 'Son of Carty' Konop should be attacking Carty, but Konop knows that Carty will not be his main competition for mayor.
It's easy to predict what this panel will report and not report:
- Carty's repainting of the hydrants had nothing to do with this issue.
- No mention of Carty's nearly 12 years as mayor and his failure to replace the old, small pipes.
- Blame the fire department or blame someone or something other than the mayor and city government.
- The fire was too advanced for the house to be saved regardless of how much water was available.
Konop Exploiting Tragedy
Sleazy politician Ben 'Son of Carty' Konop is following the federal government's mantra of never letting a good crisis go to waste.
Konop is also learning from his mentor:
- Carty exploits the murders in Perrysburg Township
- Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner exploits a suicide to make a deranged point
Back to the present, Jun 23, 2009 - Toledo Blade - Konop visits neighborhoods to warn of problem hydrants
Is this the job of a county commissioner? No. But it's the action of an unethical parasite running for mayor. If Konop had any ethics, he would have resigned from his county commissioner's job, since he violated his 2006 ethics pledge.
Konop's main supporter, the Toledo Blade, mentioned this in the Jun 23, 2009 story:
As mentioned before, Carty ordered all fire hydrants to be painted the same color back in the early 1990s. Saying Konop is desperate is an understatement.
The Blade also reports:
Right. As soon as possible. Sounds great if you live in fantasy land like Konop apparently does. Some pipes are over 90-years-old. Why hasn't the Democrat-controlled city of Toledo done something as soon as possible in the past 20 years, at least? Answer: because important, underground infrastructure projects are not as sexy as bike paths, signs, flowers, trees, a stadium, an arena, restaurants, condos, streetscaping, Erie Street Market, etc.
Resolving fire hydrant issue
Jul 2, 2009 - Toledo Blade - Citizen's low-cost idea to add fire hydrants gets city's notice :
Edward Howard, who makes architectural models and renderings for a living, developed the proposal after hearing about the problem of antiquated 4-inch mains from one of his employees, Janna Lake, who lives in the Westmoreland neighborhood, where fire destroyed a historic home on June 9.
Mr. Howard said he looked at a neighborhood map and realized the potential of installing hydrants on the larger, 6-inch water mains on or near Mount Vernon Avenue. The plan city officials have discussed involves replacing the entire length of 4-inch line on Mount Vernon with 8-inch line, at a cost of $305,000. That plan is on the city's schedule for water main replacement, but is about three years away.
Tom Kroma, director of public utilities, said Mr. Howard's suggestion is a good idea and one city engineers are looking at as part of a comprehensive solution to the 8.7 miles of 4-inch water mains that supply fire protection in Toledo.Crumbling Downtown
Jun 19, 2009 - Toledo Blade - 2 downtown locations to lose water as 12-inch main is repaired :
Jun 29, 2009 - Toledo Blade - Water main break closes downtown Toledo streets :