Any real surprises here?

Yes.  I admit that I was surprised that Pervis Brown beat Deidre Cole.  Other than that, it matched my expectations:

Stahl and Warner finished last, and with the exit of those two on January 1st, more than a few changes will occur on the commission - but more importantly in the city of Sandusky.  Liken it to the improved professionalism in Perkins township with the hiring of the new police chief.  You'll see a cultural shift towards openness, transparency and a return to the idea of service as opposed to entitlement.  (As in "I'm entitled to conduct my dealings in the back room without public input.)

I'm looking forward to more public involvement - forward thinking on the direction of this city.  Assignment of the true causes of the city's problem instead of blaming the people who explain how and why you're conducting public business improperly.  The city likes to shoot the messenger.  In this case, the assault against two good people translated to city commission victories:  Kim Nuesse and John Hamilton are two examples of good people who were abused by an exclusive system more concerned with preserving the status quo than serving the public.  And now the chickens have come home to roost.

Yes, Matt.  But remember:  you can always resign before you get forced out.  Because I don't think these email shenanigans are over by a long shot.

Isn't it ironic that Kline's narrative all along has been that Nuesse was "dishonest" and "deceitful" and now we've got several examples of Kline doing the very thing he falsely accused Nuesse of doing?

Kline spends over a $1 million over a parking ticket he unjustly accused Nuesse of covering up - and while he sits in the civil service hearing (on city time) to ensure that she stays fired, his truck is parked in a handicapped spot out front:

Kline quietly donates the money he would've had to pay if the interim police chief hadn't chosen to explain-away the violation, and all is forgotten.  At the same time Kline is accusing Nuesse of improperly accounting of grant money, Kline is busy hiding a $100,000 non-certified check from the public which violated the marina district development contract.

As all this new information comes to light, one can imagine why Kline looks so nervous on the stand.  He's probably thinking to himself, "Oh man, if these people only knew..."

And now we do.

PERKINS TOWNSHIP RACE:

Dwelle got clobbered - and that surprised me.  Most people I talk to thought he'd be on for life.  Maybe people blamed Dwelle for what Printy referred to as "turmoil" in the township?   Perhaps people liked Coleman's surgical approach as opposed to Dwelle's bull-in-a-china-shop approach on tumor removal?    Not sure.  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

And how about that Sandusky Register's live election night coverage?  Is that forward progress or what?

The new video format opens a whole new world to sanduskyregister.com.  Can't wait to see how it develops in the coming months!  The depth of coverage will play a huge role in the cultural shift in Erie County.  I would love to see the same video format for city commission meetings - but with moderation in the chat room.  Overall, the coverage was a great success, don't you think?

If you missed it, here's audio of the tirade city commissioner Bob Warner launched on Tim Schwanger over the $30,000 change order Warner independently approved (what a powerful guy!) on the paint job of the Hayes Ave underpass:

At the city commission debate on October 1st, Warner was asked about whether or not he could serve the union and the city of Sandusky as city commissioner without creating a conflict of interest.  Here's how Warner "answered" that question:

Can somebody please read the question for him again?  I don't think he heard it...

Sandusky resident Sharon Johnson had been asking for a copy of John Eymann's deposit check for months.  The city denied her - gave her the runaround - sent her on the proverbial 'wild goose chase' - so she asked Deidre Cole for some help on obtaining the check.

Cole says that after city finance director Ed Widman continued to deny Johnson the check, she went down to the municipal building to convince the city to give up the check.  Along with the check, Cole recieved a cache of information on a discovery disk that had been ordered by Thomas McCash:

The disk made her sick - so she began circulating it to other city residents.  Cole estimates that nearly 30 copies have been produced and distributed to other people.

Lesson:  "City chat" isn't going to undo the damage that lying and unprofessionalism causes the city of Sandusky.  Sanduskians don't want the appearance of a great town  - they actually want a great town.

Developing...

I've heard it said that the only way you can change Sandusky is by changing the culture.  What's wrong with the culture?  The secrecy.  The underhandedness.  The backroom dealing.

Getting my hands on a CD full of over 8,000 emails back and forth between public officials and the developer of the marina district has been downright entertaining.  You can pick up a lot of info when the writers start to forget they're writing on public email accounts.

Take the following email for example.  A reader can start to form a picture of the types of relationships that exist between the writers.  Also note the question from Eymann that sparks the response from Kline:

Note that Eymann sees no problem with creating an "emergency" to get his project moving - and Kline answers back with a plea for patience because his "Sandusky Now" group is reorganizing.  No big surprises here - but to see Eymann so candidly refer to the city's tactic of using emergency legislation to circumvent public recourse against their decisions should confirm that that's in fact why the commission so often uses emergency legislation in controversial matters.  If Eymann recognizes this, every citizen in Sandusky should too.

This is just a tidbit...

More coming...

(Oh, and be on the lookout for city employees' attempting to use private email accounts to avoid their correspondence from being made public like this, because that's a govhack's knee jerk reaction when he realizes that his emails can be read by the people he's supposed to serve.)