Huson Rebuttal Letter

The Ruston Connection web page has Council Member Bradley Huson's rebuttal letter posted. Bradley had promised to send it to me once he got it typed out, but Sally Everding was able to get it up before he had time to get it to me. Please feel free to leave your comments or respond directly to Mr. Huson at bhuson@wamail.net.

On factual correction is needed. Contrary to Huson's letter Transue caused the many recent resignations, Bob Pudlo did not resign is his seat two years early because of Mayor Transue. He resigned because the Ruston Connection group maintained control of the council after the November 2007 election. He felt his input would continue to be ignored and similar to former Mayor Transue, the personal attacks and resulting stress were having a negative impact on his health. ~ Karen

On Monday, June 2, Michael Transue resigned as mayor of Ruston. True to form the resignation came as a complete surprise to most of the council but this is behavior that we have come to expect. Many of us worked hard to elect Michael Transue to his term of mayor and we sat quietly for the first five months of 2006 and watched him put off decision after decision until he could ‘get his arms around it’, a term that to this day gives me a nauseated feeling every time I hear it.

Mr. Transue was unable to move forward without the help of thousands of dollars of consultants’ advice, which was a constant sticking point with past and current Councils.

Mr. Transue’s admission of lack of time and suggestion of a part-time administrator to assist him at $100,000 a year was met with derision. Why wouldn’t it be? He continually overspent the budget for planning services, coming to the Council with a supplemental budget after the money had already been spent. And what did that several hundred thousand dollars get us?

• Development of the Point Ruston site which is completely bogged down and behind schedule because of the mayor’ unwillingness to direct his staff at Huitt Zollars to spend more time moving the project forward and less time trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of the town and Mike Cohen;
• two threatened and now pending litigations with regard to the work at Huitt Zollars, which was the mayor’s staff and directed solely by him,
• pending litigation from our former police chief regarding his termination, another staff member who was directed solely by him, with advice from legal counsel directed solely by him

There have been four resignations from this Council in the last seven months, two of them because of the conflict between the mayor and the Council. In fact there is only one person on the Council who has served more than two years. The common denominator of these resignations was Michael Transue.

It has become more clear that as the current Council became more knowledgeable and proactive, the former mayor became more obstinate. It also became clear that the mayor was working behind our back to hinder us from moving forward with items and ideas that would be very beneficial to us and the town in the long run. The former mayor’s inability and unwillingness to listen to anyone else’s ideas on any subject and his constant and meaningless rebuttals to thwart us from moving forward did not solve problems; it created them.

I, for one, am thrilled that Mr. Transue has resigned so that the united Council can move forward without fear of being ignored, undermined or attacked. I hope that the citizens will be patient over the next several weeks while we clean up the mess that Mr. Transue has left us, though unlike the former mayor I think that you will find it won’t take us a lot of time to ‘get our arms around’ the situation.

Thank you.
Bradley Huson