10 REASONS NOT TO REELECT JEAN STOTHERT

1. WILDLY EXPENSIVE STREETCAR THAT DUPLICATES SECTION OF ALARMINGLY EXPENSIVE ORBT RENOVATION OF #2 LINE

TIF Financing: The city plans to use TIF proceeds to cover the $389 million in costs. 

Operating and Maintenance: The project is expected to have annual operating and maintenance costs of $6.4 million, which will be paid for by parking fees. 

Other Infrastructure Improvements: Infrastructure improvements, such as upgrades to utilities and bridges, are estimated to cost $70 million, with other parties covering these costs. 

Contracts: The Omaha Streetcar Authority has signed 19 contracts totaling nearly $141 million. 

2. ORBT 

3. AWOL IN ITALY

3. STREET DESTROYER

Stothert’s habit of annexing SIDs with substandard streets built by developers and then grinding them into gravel after refusing to repave them, even made the New York Times

4. POTHOLES 

5. SLOWED AND DIMINISHED CITY SERVICES


Last January a sinkhole almost ate a city garbage truck 2 blocks from from the Downtown library Stothert had demolished. The sinkhole is still not fixed.

6. ANNEXATIONS


Stothert’s repeated binges of annexation sometimes cost more in extending city services than they yielded in increased property taxes and increased response times for fire and police calls, alarming some of her takeover targets


7.THE MOTHER OF ALL STOTHERT TAXPAYER RIPOFFS:THE MUTUAL/LIBRARY BOONDOGGLE!

What Jean Stothert did to Omaha's magnificent downtown library with its 4 story skylit atrium and floor to ceiling windows overlooking the mall. It cost you about a million dollars to destroy for Mutual of Omaha, because apparently 68 million in property tax giveaways weren't enough for Stothert & Co. She claimed the library, built in the 60s, was "outdated", then relocated it to a structurally challenged, much older building on Jones which was too small for Dale Clark's archival collections which she had moved to a flood-plagued area off 84th street.

(list via dlamontHayes on reddit)

• $63.2 million in TIF to Mutual of Omaha for Skyscraper
• $4,650,000 10 yr lease 1401 Jones St to Lund Real Estate & White Lotus Group
• $4,050,000 10 yr lease Shopko at 84th & Frederick
• $3,928,595 renovation of 1401 Jones to Weitz Construction
• Increase from $500,000 to $2.52 million,
• Shopko renovation $27,000 for temp library rent
• $320,000 to Noddle Companies for 1401 Jones
• $150,000 to Noddle Companies for temp space mgmt
• $700,000 for Omaha Public Library demolition
• $20 million to CIT/Heritage Services for 72nd library
• $54 million + public fees for Mutual of Omaha’s current parking
• $99 million + public fees for Mutual's future parking
• $494,614 to HDR, Inc for 1401 Jones design
• $10,000 to HDR to design temp library
• $100,000 to MuniCap for Streetcar projections
• $354 million in TIF for streetcar
• $415,750 to outfit temporary space, see the July 26 agenda
• https://cityclerk.cityofomaha.org/images/agenda/2022-07-26a3.pdf

8. A BLATANTLY CONDESCENDING HOMOPHOBE ON THE CITY COUNCIL

9. A COVERTLY HOMOPHOBIC MAYOR WHO REPEATEDLY DECEIVED LGBTS

After appointing an LGBT advisory council as window dressing, she routinely ignores it, although recently she invoked it as a shield in a blatant lie.  She claimed she consulted it about her sleazy anti-trans TV attack ad on election opponent John Ewing. Ewing's lawyer says her ad defamed Ewing.

The only member of her LGBT Advisory board we've seen speak up was Demi Kulper, who said she’s never met Stothert and wasn’t “consulted” about Stothert’s TV ad. 

Due to recent events, I need to set the record straight. A recent article states that members of the City of Omaha's LGBTQ+ Advisory Board were consulted on the mayor's anti-trans advertisement before it aired. That is absolutely not true in my case. I was never consulted. I was never informed. I did not have any conversations with the mayor or her office about thisad.

Yes, I serve on the advisory board, but this does not reflect the values I hold or the work I am here to do. I've proudly served on this board for the past four years. In that time, the mayor has never attended asingle meeting. In fact, l've never even met her.

I joined this committee to serve as a liaison between the LGBTQ+ community and city leadership-to raise concerns, offer insight, and advocate for equity when LGBTQ+ topics arise. I did not join to be used as a political shield for harmful messaging that puts our community at risk...

...This kind of messaging is harmful, divisive, and wrong. Our trans community deserves to feel safe, valued, and affirmed. I will always do my part to make sure that happens. We all deserve better than this.

Go vote next Tuesday. To my friends, family, and community, I hope that this speaks volumes about the candidates of this race.

In a previous mayoral race against Heath Mello, Stothert claimed protections against housing discrimination for LGBTs were unnecessary because of federal protections (a phony quarter-truth) and that her LGBT council was happy to hear such news.

10. KID GLOVES FOR WHITE RACISTS, BUT FELONY INQUIRIES FOR NON-VIOLENT BLM DEMONSTRATORS

Minimized Tony Caniglia III’s racist social media call to violence against BLM demonstrators but tried to see if non-violent demonstrators at his family’s restaurant could be charged with felonies


NE's most feared lawyer threatens defamation suit against Omaha mayor's campaign

Jean Stothert, Omaha's Republican mayor, is using trans people as political footballs in new, last minute TV ads to rip her opponent, John Ewing, as standing with unnamed radicals on boys in girls sports and bathrooms. His campaign called the ad utterly false.

     The Ewing campaign's lawyer, Dave Domina, isn't turning the other cheek. Domina, whose lawsuit halted the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska even before President Biden revoked its permit, is perhaps the most feared lawyer in the state. His letter to Stothert's campaign demanded a retraction and correction, and implied a defamation lawsuit if both were not forthcoming.

The election is tomorrow.

     Wrote Domina: "Nothing Mr. Ewing has said at any time supports this statement for your publication," adding that the statement was made with either "malicious intentions or wanton disregard for the truth."

     (It appears that Ewing has largely, if not completely, ignored the plight of the trans community in Omaha, neither attacking nor defending them.)

     Mailers have also appeared on porches across Omaha, attacking Ewing in a manner that is either incredibly nasty or face-palmingly idiotic. 

     Unlike the suspiciously similar TV ads, they aren't from Stothert's campaign, but from a born-last-spring PAC called Omaha Leadership Fund, which has spent 75 grand so far, to trash Ewing. (PACs are forbidden to collude with the campaigns of candidates.) 

     The fund also generously dumped at least $18k into the Stothert campaign in cash and in-kind contributions.

     So who funds the Omaha Leadership Fund?

     Another PAC, possums! One called Common Sense Nebraska.

Click to enlarge

     And who funded that?

     Marlene Ricketts!–the matriarch of a billionaire Nebraska family (TD Ameritrade), who is rapidly becoming known in some circles as the Ma Barker of Nebraska politics. (She recently funded a successful voter ID referendum, presumably to make it harder for Cornhusker poors to vote for Democrats, that employed out-of-state mercenaries caught repeatedly on camera lying to voters and feloniously failing to read the summary at the top of the referendum signature sheets.)    

     Jean Stothert, for her part, claimed that she has a good relationship with Omaha's LGBT community (she doesn't) and told the World-Herald that she consulted with members of the LGBT advisory board she created, before running the ad.

      She evidently bet that the World-Herald wouldn't check with anyone on her LGBT Advisory board, and she seems to have bet right.

      BOTTOM: an example of Mayor Stothert's "good relationship" with Omaha's LGBT community during her tenure on the city council, where she twice voted against adding LGBT Omahans to the city's list of classes protected from job discrimination.