Matt Kelty & The Plight Of The Amish
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 5/31/08 @ 1:36 am - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
Are these two somehow connected? Well I certainly wouldn’t have thought so but a guest column in the NS argues otherwise:
Here were good, decent, hard-working people whose only desire was to be left alone to work their farms and raise their families in accordance with their religious beliefs. Yet they were being forced to sell off their belongings in a desperate attempt to save their way of life.
I was convinced that we had found a person who may yet save the Amish and the other rural residents from a punishing tax burden that was none of their creating. Over the next month, my husband and I worked on the Kelty campaign, and to our delight, he was elected the Republican candidate for mayor.
Matt Kelty - Amish Hero? But seriously the letter is an interesting read, I suppose, in that oddball news story sort of way. Let’s follow the author as she continues her journey into the revisionist-history abyss:
What happen next was also straight out of the Westerns. Kelty soon found himself embroiled in one smear campaign after another, finally culminating in his indictment by a grand jury.
Smear campaign culminating in indictment? He was indicted for campaign finance violations and perjury - neither had anything to do with a smear campaign. Matt Kelty made poor choices that he’s personally responsible for and that is why he is where he is today. There was no elitist conspiracy, well at least not one that I was invited to.
Today, Fort Wayne’s government is confronted with budget shortfalls and the realization that wildly unpopular spending sprees like Harrison Square are progressing disastrously. This, of course, has not stopped them from moving ahead with their next boondoggle on the old OmniSource property.
Moving ahead with OmniSource? I hadn’t heard that. OmniSource is DOA unless the land gets gifted to the city which probably isn’t out of the question.
The move to crush home rule and consolidate all power into fewer hands has now moved to the state level with the release of the Orwellian Kernan-Shepard report.
Orwellian? The report was a stab at making government more efficient and I believe the vast majority of the proposals would do that. I’m sure we could all quibble over a few of the recommendations but Orwellian?
The symbolism and rhetoric in this letter is so over the top it almost reads like some kind of Stephen Colbert bit…
Comments
8 Responses to “Matt Kelty & The Plight Of The Amish”
Leave a Reply
I guess my observation is this - many people have a great amount of debt. I understand that auctioning off a property is a way of resolving a debtor’s problems, but one has to wonder if Kelty’s choice of this option isn’t being done for another reason such as generating sympathy close to the trial.
After all, when others auction off their homes, how much media coverage is involved?
With the trial set for a couple of months after the sale, it guarantees that the auctioning process will be in the news close to the start of the trial.
The auction itself won’t be the last we hear of the sale. I could be wrong, but I will bet that once the house is sold, the media will follow up on the purchaser and probably all the minute details of the sale, thus keeping the story alive until the trial.
The Kernan Sheppard Report is fair, balanced and accurate. It is quite far from Orwellian. Its about making government more accountable and responsive to the people because it is made “understandable.” I challenge anyone to prove to me that County government in this State is any where near “understandable” or responsive. It is not. Blame shifting bueracracy is Orwellian, not the Kernan Sheppard Report.
Having said that, I have a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Kelty. This investigation and subsequent Prosecution is disproportionate. The Perjury charges spring from a lopsided witch hunt in the middle of a political campaign. Let’s do investigations on ALL the current political candidates right now if we want to start beating the drum on these kinds of issues. It is not balanced where the “punishment fits the crime.” It is unbalanced and a misuse of the Criminal justice system.
Charlotte,
I’d have to disagree. The trial is nearly 6-months out, that is hardly close when trying to keep people’s attention for any length of time. Consider also the big profile statewide elections as well as this being a Presidential election year. With the din of all that going on from now until November, who is going to pay attention to anything else?
I believe Kelty is doing what he has to do to fund a defense, and the Spring & Summer are the best times to sell a home. From what I’ve seen, he is not mounting a PR offensive, he is running his business, taking care of his family, and attempting to defend himself, period.
Jeff,
You’re getting good at only posting parts of stories you can attack. Here’s the entire letter.
(TEXT DELETED)
Jeff Pruitt: Penny Wise, I linked to the entire article for anyone that wanted to read it. I didn’t post the entire thing because it’s actually illegal to do so as it violates fair use - that’s also why I removed the text from your comment. Heck I even commented that the letter was an interesting read…
Fred:
Many people have to fund defenses, and they don’t auction off their homes. Even though his trial is four months away - according to the newspapers rather than two as I thought - I would imagine it will be highly likely that this will continue to draw attention from the local media right up to the time of trial.
While the national elections will be coming up after the trial, that does not take away from the attention this situation will generate.
While he may not be running an organized PR offensive, he has to know that this will generate PR for him.
Charlotte,
You obiously know more about this than I do.
I can only repeat what I’ve already said, I believe Kelty is doing what he has to do to fund a defense, and part of that effort involves selling his home. He is not mounting a PR offensive, he is running his business, taking care of his family, and attempting to defend himself.
Cerainly Kelty is not the only person to ever sell his home to have to pay for lawyers. Those that don’t have to, good for them.
Let me preface this by saying I have no dog in this fight - I voted for Henry.
That being said, I agree with Fred - this is a one time news story. No one is going to be talking about how Kelty had a garage sale several months from now.
I vacillate on whether this is a political witch hunt. But I do agree with Jim’s post that the prosecution certainly is disproportionate. Perjury was not sufficient enough to constitute a “high crime and misdemeanor” so as to throw President Clinton out of office. In 2008, our district will probably once again send a congressman to Washington who promised to serve only until 2006. Idaho has a lsitting Senator who first pled guilty to an offense and then repeatedly stated he was not, in fact, guilty. But a local guy who doesn’t have the political savvy or connections of a President or Senator, we want to throw in jail.
The problem is that it is a tough market to sell in right now.
Further, Kelty has two mortgages on his house- totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of $166,000.
If it sells, there is not going to be a lot of money left over to apply to legal fees.