Ex-Congressman Arrested: Delivering letter to Blackwell

[Liberty Belle]

A former US congressmen went from the halls of congress to the halls of justice and was jailed in Columbus after attempting to deliver a letter about voting irregularities to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Dan Hamburg was a California congressman in the early 1990s. This week Hamburg and his wife have been part of a group watching the latest developments in the Ohio recount.

http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2668654&nav=LQlCTzoL

[shance]

1. Trying to serve him with papers?

n/t

[Liberty Belle]

4. I wondered that, too. Blackwell should be recalled.

Ohio voters--Someone please find out procedures for recalling/impeaching this public official who has made it clear he does NOT want to find out about voting fraud, since he has refused to accept potetential evidence and has now used coercive tactics to arrrest an ex-Congressman and suppress the truth.

[Kolesar]

10. I recall that Ohio has no recall provisions for the Executive Branch

...unlike Collie-forneea

[Liberty Belle]

20. can he be impeached for failure to perform his public duty?

[shuffnew]

50. Well it says "letter" - doesn't mention serving legal paper, but...

who knows for sure.

[knowbody0]

2. time for subpoenas

[Judi Lynn]

3. Incomprehensible.You wouldn't think the police would go through with it.nt

[Just Me]

5. Trespassing? Bullshit!!!

He's a public officer paid by public funding and the public deserves access to him and his office.

Can anyone believe this shit?

Crazy!!!

[TexasChick]

33. Welcome to the new Nazi Amerika! And, it's only going to get worse! n/t

[BlueManDude]

6. Hamburg is a hero n/t

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

7. What is the Secretary of State's office

doing in a private building?

"Columbus police arrested Hamburg and his wife, Carrie, Wednesday for trespassing after refusing to leave a private downtown building that houses the secretary's office"

How can someone be arrested for trying to deliver anything legal to a government office?

DBDB

[imenja]

12. Theresa LaPore claims her office is private

She is the supervisor of elections of Palm Beach county (madame butterfly ballot) and she insisted that Bev Harris was trespassing when she delivered a subpoena to a meeting of a number of supervisors of elections. I don't believe, however, she succeeded in having them arrested. What ever happened to the principal of open government?

[1monster]

22. In Florida, it is against the law to interfere with the delivery of a

subpoena... Ergo, any police officer who arrested a person for trying to deliver a subpoena would be courting serious trouble.

[MADem]

30. Shit, I thought FL had the much vaunted

"Sunshine Laws"....??? Guess that means let the sun shine up your ass before you will ever get any justice...

Damn.

[alaintex]

42. I think it was a letter, not a subpoena.

[AZCat]

8. Secretaries office in private building - is this common?

From the article linked above:
Columbus police arrested Hamburg and his wife, Carrie, Wednesday for trespassing after refusing to leave a private downtown building that houses the secretary's office. Hamburg was an elected democrat, then a green and then a libertarian candidate in California. (Emphasis mine)

Shouldn't the Secretary of State's office be accessible by the public? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Is this more common that I think, or am I right in being outraged that Blackwell is being "protected" from the unwashed masses by housing his office on private property?

[Liberty Belle]

9. When I worked in Sacramento years ago, it was public.

[mcg]

31. The privatization of government, what is this?

"Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?"

This is certainly a lot bigger than a molehill. These crooks have a lot of gall, claiming that the offices of government officials, who are public servants - or at least are supposed to be, are private. This shows their arrogance and dictatorial attitude. They also claim that we cannot look at the software used to count OUR votes because it is 'proprietary'.

This is all a total outrage!

[KDLarsen]

34. Perhaps mr. Blackwell has his 'public' office

.. in the same building as the Ohio GOP?

[AZCat]

36. Nope, but he does share it with...

the PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF OHIO
180 E Broad St., 12th Fl.
Columbus 43215
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Gail Blackmore
Public Utilities, Law, Transportation

Scroll down, it's the third from the last entry.


The Ohio GOP office is at Ohio Republican Party Headquarters
211 S. Fifth Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215
[phone] phone
[phone] fax
[e-mail]


Does this information tell us anything? I dunno.

[imenja]

11. How can the Secretary's office be in a private building?

He is a public "servant." Was this the Secretary of State office or the campaign office for Bush?
This is horrifying. Does that man actually think he can be elected governor after all this?

[Semi_subversive]

15. In CA, the SoS is located in a public building

But State offices are located in both public and leased facilities. My dept, the Dept. of Insurance is located in a leased facility as are most of our offices around the state. The public has access to common areas of the building, i.e., reception areas, but you must have a key card or an appointment to get any further than that. This helps keep the whackos out. And we get a lot of them.

[Liberty Belle]

21. This was no wacko. Anyone should be entitled to deliver

a written document alleging electoral fraud to a Secretary of State, a public official.

[BrightKnight]

23. Was it leased with public funds? -nt

[screembloodymurder]

19. Who's paying for these private offices?

This is bullshit.

[imenja]

24. amen

It's our tax dollars and they claim it's PRIVATE! It's an outrage!

[vpigrad]

13. Damn cops

They're always doing crap like this since they hate freedom. After all, why would someone become one of those thugs if they didn't ate freedom?

[ooglymoogly]

14. SS storm troopers on the way

watch out.

[nolabels]

38. The only thing worse than the Cops in OHIO...................

Is the OHIO national guard, they shoot protesters with real bullets :crazy:

[alaintex]

44. The couple was asked to leave and refused.

Sounds to me like they wanted to be arrested to make a point. The cops just helped them make that point. You wouldn’t be reading about the story if the cops hadn’t done their jobs.

[Left Brain]

16. Note the pictures they printed

were probably the worst ones they could find.

I hope Hamburg and his wife have cause to sue the crap out of Blackwell with this.

[SoCalDem]

17. They COULD have usde this one

[Left Brain]

18. Well heck no,

that'd make him look like an activist instead of a blue-faced, unshaven thug. Wouldn't want to "mislead" our readers now, would we?

Grrrrrrrrrr, I DESPISE the media when they do this.

[Botany]

27. Inside Poop

ONN which had the story is owned by the Columbus, Dispatch whose owner despite
a 2 year slew of bad press and bad editorials about bush endorsed him. They called
Conyers' hearings partisan. Gee, they forget to say that the repugs were invited but they just did not show up.

:mad;

[annabanana]

25. they didn't have to "find" them...it's the mug shots

from the arrests........

[sehlatik]

26. Is there anything...

these thugs WON'T DO to stay in office?!?!

[daleo]

28. He refused to leave a restaurant

So, he was not only disallowed from seeing this public servant, but he was arrested for being in a restaurant.

[juliagoolia]

29. The Scoop on who owns the building

J. Kenneth Blackwell
Ohio Secretary of State
180 E. Broad St. 16th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

http://www.officespace.com/osoweb/Flyer.cfm?RgnNm=Columbus&BldgNm=180EBROAD
Rent an office there.

Continental Realty Ltd. For further information, contact:
Wayne Harer [phone]



Owner Information
Call 614-462-4663 if incorrect
180 E BROAD PARTNERS LLC
150 E BROAD ST
COLUMBUS OH 43215


Tax Bill Mailing Information
Mail Changes Only - Click Here
CONTINENTAL REAL ESTATE
ACCOUNTING DEPT
150 E BROAD ST
COLUMBUS OH 43215

___________________________________________________
Now, why is the PUBLIC office that the PUBLIC has a right to visit reside in a private building owned by a LLC?

And which owner of the LLC called to complain?

[Blue Belle]

32. Welcome to the first stages of privatization...

No longer will government offices be public domain... and as for holding true to the democracy they have pledged to uphold, GOP public officials are thought to be (in their own minds) above the law when it comes to subpoenas, the Constitution, or any other aspect of public office that requires the actual follow through of morals and ethics. I find it absolutely appalling that government can become more secretive and closed off... but the privacy and rights of ordinary citizens is more and more elusive. Kenneth Blackwell should be taken down... but instead, he stays perched in his tower. Meanwhile, I fear that my tax records and college loan defaults will be plastered all over a billboard along the Interstate HWY because of a few curt letters I wrote to the editor. I fear for what will happen to this country under 4 more years of a GOP held Government. If I weren't one of the working poor/walking wounded, I'd be on a plane tomorrow helping to recount Ohio. Everyday since November 2nd, I pray for a miracle.

[AZCat]

35. Weird - I got different info.

I googled (gotta love search engines) and got this page:

Yellow Pages Online Directory - Office Buildings & Parks - Columbus, OH

Second from the bottom is this entry (the same address as Blackwell's building):

Trizechahn Office Properties 180 E Broad St [phone]


Neither the name nor the phone number are the same. Any guesses why?


:shrug:

[shuffnew]

39. TrizecHahn Office Properties - Security Manager Phone #

Here's phone number you found 614-221-6260 (Security Manager, Suite 814)

Dawn M. Gill
Security Manager
TrizecHahn Office Properties
180 East Broad Street, Suite 814
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
email: [e-mail]

[juliagoolia]

51. YUP

Seems they did a transfer of property in late 2004. Might be the reason why.
Current info in above taken from county tax info.

[shuffnew]

40. Biz Journal: Some History on the E. Broad Street Bldg, owners/investors..

Here's a link in biz journal that has a 3 page history on Borden Towers - Trizec Properties - Continental, etc. which states the lead tenant is Borden Inc.

EXCLUSIVE REPORTS (biz journal)
From the July 30, 2004 print edition
Investors upbeat on Borden tower future
Brian R. Ball
Business First

"When real estate developer and investor Frank Kass leans back in his chair on the eighth floor of 150 E. Broad St. in Columbus, he can't help but gaze at the neighboring Borden high-rise."

Full Text:
http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2004/08/02/story2.html?jst=s_rs_hl

< snip >
Like many older downtown office properties, the Borden building experienced a change of fortunes. Just 4 percent of the building was vacant in 1998, when investor TrizecHahn bought the tower for $47.9 million, or more than $84 a square foot, as part of a multiproperty deal.

Since then, the space taken by lead tenant Borden Inc. has dwindled as it sold divisions.

Other tenants have left amid a general slump in the economy.

Last summer, the renamed Trizec Properties put the building on the market through Cushman & Wakefield and its local affiliate, Columbus Commercial Realty, as it moved to sell office buildings in cities where it had just one or two investments.
<snip off>

[cavanaghjam]

37. So Diebold

even had their offices in the same building as the SoS? I wonder who had whose tongue in the other's anus.

"Blackwell's office says it was private tenants in the building who asked security to call the officers."

[shuffnew]

41. TrizecHahn & Texas Connections

looks like our government has some lust for Trizec Property usage..

Check out the Texas connections (even Boeings' NASA project):

http://www.rebuz.com/transact/0701-real-estate-transactions/trizechahn-7-24-01.htm

[Liberty Belle]

45. Send this to Conyers &, just for fun, to Madsen.

Let a real investigative journalist check out all those Texas connections, and ask Conyers to introduce a bill barring this kind of crap.

[ucmike]

46. Trizec is huge

they own a lot of commercial space around the country. it would be hard to find large office space, in a modern building that could meet the tech needs of a large office without being involved with them or someone like them. a lot of pro-dem people also rent from trizec.

i know nothing of their politics, but i do know they hold and manage a lot of real estate leased by anyone who can pay the rent.

[shuffnew]

48. True, but I am a suspicious Texan and sick of the GOP mob HQ here...

I realize Trizec is large and perhaps I am paranoid, but it does seem many of the political crimes point back to Texas in the end! As one poster suggested, it may be worth a letter sent to Conyers on this one.

Blackwell refusing to operate an office Open to the Public. And just who was the complaining tenant? Could have been a simple call to Trizec Security (their Security appears to be a "tenant" and could have initiated this on Blackwell's request or any other GOP tenant on the lookout for them).

:kick:

[Guaranteed]

43. Dan Hamburg? Oh, damn!

He's from Northern California...grew up with that guy around...

[RaleighNCDUer]

47. The first amendment says nothing about government officials

being protected from a petition to redress grievances if they happen to be on private property when approached.

The argument could be made that anywhere a government office is, is public property, even if leased by a private holder. By logical extension, the hallways, stairs, elevators, etc., needed to reach those offices would have to be considered public as well.

The government cannot be allowed to hide from the public.

[shuffnew]

49. Absolutely & you can bet if it were a Democrat Office Delivery...

it would have been handled QUITE differently! If a GOP member was denied access, you can bet the Democrat would have been thrown in jail for obstruction of justice from a Secretary of State Democrat's Office (not the one being denied due access to deliver a letter)!
:kick:

[Digit]

52. kick