Beutler took thousands in donations from Antelope Valley contractors
After learning about the cracking or spalling that’s happening on four brand-spanking-new Antelope Valley bridges in downtown Lincoln, I took a look at which companies built them, and which of those contributed to Mayor Chris Beutler’s campaign war chest since he took office.
No surprise, three of the companies have given thousands to Beutler since 2007.
Of course, many of the construction, design and engineering companies that have worked on big Lincoln projects give money to politicians. Many of the companies now doing arena work have given thousands of dollars to Beutler (and a few other local politicians) in recent years.
The city has not yet determined what is causing the spalling on four Antelope Valley bridges– which recently caused a chunk of concrete to fall off the O Street bridge, so we don’t have a person or company to point our finger at.
But as an aside, here are Antelope Valley contractors who gave money to Beutler in recent years (this doesn’t count donations from individuals who work for the companies):
• Hawkins Construction Co. — the primary contractor for two of the bridges (with multiple subcontractors) — has donated $7,000 to Beutler.
• PB Americas — the company in charge of both design and engineering for all of the bridges — has donated $6,500 to Beutler.
• HWS — one of PB’s design subcontractors — donated $4,000 to Beutler.
Suttle supporters bus homeless people to vote
Omaha is abuzz over Mayor Jim Suttle’s supporters’ paying to send three busloads of homeless people from a shelter to an election office to vote on Wednesday — and giving some of them $5 for their trouble.
And in this YouTube age, of course somebody shot a video of people from the shelter getting off the bus and going in to vote — and one of them appearing to yell, “Where’s our money at?”
Foward Omaha (the group trying to keep Suttle from being recalled later this month) says they were paid $5 for completing training on how to go door-to-door to get out the vote. (Really? They’re going to pay homeless people to go door-to-door getting out the vote for Suttle?) The group says they were offered $10 an hour to work on Election Day.
It’s against the law to pay someone to vote, and Forward Omaha says they made it clear they weren’t paying the people to vote.
Makes Lincoln politics look boring by comparison.
Winterized 