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Originally Posted by ernie
I'm not saying using the letterhead/influence was the right thing to do, far from it, however when it comes to inappropriate use of funds and influence I'm sure a cursory look at city finances would uncover a lot more wrong doing that dwarfs this and has nothing to do with him.
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And you'll find a handful related to him as well (rescheduled buses to transport his football team, unscheduled city improvements near his house etc.)
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Yet for some reason everything is focused on one thing and one guy...it just screams witch hunt. I don't like that. Hell the amount of resources spent on this thing alone when the guy didn't actually pocket anything and it went to charity is quite frankly obscene.
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When you're a jerk to your peers, they're going to come back and get you. Had Ford been even slightly more tactful (and significantly less of an arrogant #######) he could have gotten out of this. Instead his opponents found a legal way to get him booted, which he had multiple attempts to avoid. This didn't come out of the blue, this was a long process that gave him several outs. He was just too stubborn to do so.
As for the judge being able to dismiss as an error in judgement, he can only do that if it is deemed an 'honest mistake'. The way to admit such a mistake was paying the money back. Ford didn't do that and in fact denied that he did anything wrong at all according to the rule book (which he didn't read). He did everything he could have to force the judge to not be able to make such a judgement. He defeated himself.