Back and Forth on Lifetime Medical
by Dale Tyler

With all of the positioning and public relations activities occurring with regard to lifetime medical benefits for City Council members, one might think this issue was one of the most complex to face our city in decades.

The simple truth is that the current City Council members (Ury, Kelley) who are eligible for the benefit want to get get medical insurance, but don't want the public to think they want it. The reason for this subterfuge is that it is costly to the taxpayer, nearly $300,000 each and most citizens don't think the part-time City Council deserves it. Yet, both Ury and Kelly keep searching for a way to get the benefit later while appearing to be fiscally prudent and thus say they never want it.

The most recent round of positioning occurred at the last council meeting, when three council members voted to keep the benefit – Ury, Kelly and their lapdog Leckness who is so confused he said he would vote against lifetime medical before he voted for it.

The next council meeting, scheduled for July 6 will see Ury and Kelley trying to “repudiate” or “reject” lifetime medical benefits. Why do this when they could have rejected the last meeting by simply voting to eliminate the benefit for all present and future council members? The answer lies in their actual motives – to keep those benefits for themselves. As public employees, they can't actually bind themselves to not getting lifetime medical by signing an agreement. Nothing they do, short of passing a law eliminating the benefits and then not repealing the law after they are re-elected will serve to prevent Ury and Kelly from getting lifetime medical. Without a law stating there are no benefits, Ury and Kelly can simply change their minds next week, next month or when they are off the council and beyond being accountable to the voters.

Thus, the so-called “rejections” are little more than complicated lies intended to divert the public from the simple truth that Ury and Kelley want the lifetime medical benefits. They can be easily reversed at any time by the council member making the “rejection”, as they are mere promises to act in a certain way.

Another method that Ury and Kelley are trying to use to get the benefits they think they so richly deserve is to try and blame the only other council member that could have been eligible for lifetime medical benefits, Gail Reavis. They claim that Reavis could claim a benefit at any time, even though she did not serve 12 years on the council. However, it has been more than a year since Reavis left the council and no claim has materialized. It is interesting that, one the one hand Ury and Kelley lie to the voters about their “rejection” being binding on them, while at the same time, they accuse former council member of being able to claim a benefit to which she is not entitled by law.

The bottom line is that, once again, Ury and Kelley are trying to convince the public that they are fiscally prudent and morally unwilling to benefit unjustly, by “rejecting” the lifetime benefits. This is being done for the sole purpose of getting Kelley reelected in November. It is instructive to note that this was done in 2008 and then undone as soon as Ury was reelected. I predict that both Ury and Kelly will do whatever they can to receive a lifetime medical benefit, either by withdrawing their “rejection” on the “advice” of City Attorney Curley immediately after the 2010 election or when they are finally off the council by voter choice or term limits.

Hopefully the voters will pay attention to this issue in November and refuse to reelect Kelly to a third term which would guarantee her lifetime medical benefits