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Old Posted Jan 19, 2012, 6:53 PM
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Bdog Bdog is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Winnipeg
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Quote:
Originally Posted by h0twired View Post
Define "breaking the law". What law or line in the City Charter is there that states that the mayor's office cannot pay for a Christmas party out of the office budget? Even if said restaurant is owned (in part) by the mayor himself.

At the end of the day there were probably 100+ people at the party and the total bill came in under $3000. That is a pretty cheap party when you really break it down.

What percentage of Hu's does Katz own?

If anything I suspect that the party was done at-cost and the owners made nothing at all. Even if there was a profit to be had Katz' portion would be laughably minimal.

Sure the optics are terrible, but people are really raising a stink about next to nothing and most of those upset vocal people will do anything to smear Katz at any tiny infraction.
I think you're missing the point of the outcry. It's not that the party was taxpayer funded, but that it was held at a restaurant owned by the mayor. Probably 100+ people? Not sure how you can guess the amount that were there (and I'm not even sure that place would hold that many).

Katz said other places were packed, and that he could get a good deal - what process is in place to make sure that's the case?

More importantly, the fact that Katz doesn't see the conflict in this makes people worry about what other business practices he considers ethical. Maybe it's ok to give a long term library lease to a buddy's property, because they can get the best deal? Maybe it's ok to hire a buddy's consulting firm (without shopping around), because other firms were too busy? For someone always railing against taxpayer waste, I'm surprised you can defend this...
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