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The city administration is a living example of what was originally called “honest services fraud”. This is the city’s modus operandi on too many things, not just the contract. You can’t have a meaningful debate on anything under these circumstances. They will call on surrogates to create distractions, they will pull good-cop bad-cop routines, they will go silent, they will outright lie.

Regarding the Friday Dec 20 meeting: A citizen uses the word “retarded” in public comment. He complies with the moderator's admonition, and rephrases “retarded” to “it shouldn’t happen”. After this he is told “Don’t challenge me, I’m giving you the courtesy of coming to the mike . . . ” (15:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTXDYaeb9c)

Do you believe it? The citizen was publicly beat-down, for speaking his truth in a courteous fashion. The citizen has a constitutional right to say “retarded” in the context used, or we don’t have free speech. I understood what was meant by “retarded”, and I took it to mean something related to “honest services fraud”. Publicly demeaning a citizen, treating him like a misbehaving school child, while forcing the citizen to change his original words, is, well, retarded on the part of the moderator. Unfortunately this happens all the time. The reported (Warwick Post) resignation of the city council’s attorney just prior to the meeting should have been followed by certain council member and other resignations, in my opinion.