Mayor Jim Suttle

The Dems retain Mayor of Omaha

I HATE Suttle. Omaha has been very progressive in the last 16 years under Daub and Fahey. We have seen over $3B invested in downtown. We have seen a revitalization of Downtown and it is expanding into North and South Omaha.

Daub offer ideas like a trolley system and investing more money in North Omaha. What did Suttle respond with:

"I have been and engineer for 40 years"
"I want to be mayor"
"I will listen to the people"

Now, these are great things as a PART of an introduction. However, they do NOTHING when they are in response to questions on issues like pension spiking, the impending sewer separation project, the downtown stadium, etc.

I hope he ends up doing great things for continuing to move Omaha in the right direction, but right now it is anyone's guess due to his ambiguity.

First, had Daub been elected, I would not have been crushed. He seems like a decent guy, although we would have had to put up with his promoting fellow Republicans I like much less. A lot of folks here have bad memories of the last time he was mayor (I wasn't around, and can't comment).

You mention the stadium. Daub has pretty much been wrong every step of the way in terms of whether they'd get the O-Royals in there. Now they're going to Sarpy Co., and the city, frankly, is stuck with an albatross.

Suttle was the only one I heard adress what, to me, is the really big issue -- how to pay for the sewer retrofit. Answer: stimulus money. You never know how any mamber of the GOP will respond to that.

As far as I know, both like light rail. Me -- I'm not so sure.

And I was out of town for college for the end of it. I heard there was a lot of drama and in-fighting between his office and the city council. That said, of the "legacy projects" I think he did a good job. He really helped to turn the North Downtown area from a slum to a great entertainment district. I would love to see Suttle expand that development North to bring some businesses and revitalization to North Omaha.

Granted, they were shitty plans, but plans nonetheless.

This crap is getting ugly and he has not even taken office yet.

Things are worse than what has been in the press so far.

He gives his staff HUGE raises over Fahey's staff and then says they will take pay freezes for 4 years. That would be nice if he did not give them 4 years worth of raises on day one. He then goes back on agreements for raises for city employees and freezes their pay.

he bought to cruise around in with city money. From what I've been hearing, this crew is pretty loose with city money. In some ways I like a more conservative view towards local government. I want a mean old man watching over my money. For the record, I didn't vote for mayor because I didn't really like either candidate.

My 2 month old could get a better rate than that.

The chairman of the Federal reserve makes $191,000 a year and the vice-chairman makes 172,000 a year. Suttle says Omaha has some economic challenges ahead (which I agree with), so he pays his finance advisor $180,000 a year. REALLY? Omaha's problems are on the same level as the Federal Reserve? I REALLY hope he surprises the hell out of me and I am praising him a couple years from now. However, thus far, I am NOT impressed. There is already talk of a recall petition (starting at the minimum 6 month point).