Alessi Authors More Fiction About the WCLCB

Posted by Cato

August 4, 2008

Wicomico Dispensary board member Ron Alessi was granted another piece in Monday’s Daily Times. Alessi’s latest tale, it would be a disservice to the public to call it an op-ed, was not available on the paper’s online edition.

Alessi claims that:

Wicomico County’s most recent experiment in government “transparency” - the handing over of checking information from its liquor dispensaries - has put complicated information into th hands of politically motivated detractors. There’s no surprise that charges about improper spending ensued. Many (my emphasis) of the charges are just wrong however, and none have undermined this fact:

The dispensaries are more profitable and better run than ever before.

True to form, Alessi has again shown that he has learned a great deal from his close relationship with Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman - tell a lie in the Daily Times because they will never call you on it. In all fairness to the Daily Times, this work of fiction was submitted as an op-ed and I don’t expect them to check his facts.

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Alessi’s premise is riddled with false inference and he knows it. The members of the Wicomico County Council who requested disbursement information have behaved in a responsible and generous manner.

These council members requested disbursement information. Alessi and his cohorts fought providing this information, through their attorney Vic Laws, until they were threatened with court action. After the information was FINALLY provided, neither Councilwoman Stevie Prettyman nor Councilman Joe Holloway levied ANY charges as to how the dispensary has spent (more accurately, misspent) the taxpayers’ money. Instead, these folks noted specific expenditures that appeared questionable and requested that the dispensary provide invoices and/or other supporting documentation as to these expenditures.

It is ironic that some of the items that Alessi writes about in today’s short story are some of the very same expenditures which Prettyman and Holloway requested additional information on. HOWEVER, neither member has received this information from Alessi’s minions at the WCLCB.

Why? The most likely reason is that Alessi is using another Tilghman tool - the bait and switch. By bringing out a VERY few expenditures and hoping to draw attention away from the primary matter at hand, perhaps Alessi thinks that the dispensary can escape answering more embarrassing questions.

Even Alessi’s explanation of a few of these expenditures is questionable. Does the dispensary plan on spending almost $1,000 for a watch at Kuhn’s Jewelers EVERY TIME that an employee retires? Why not, it’s not their money - it’s YOURS.

Alessi claims that money spent at a florist was for the “deaths of a co-worker and several immediate family members in recent years”. Given the number of check’s written to Kitty’s Flowers, the WCLCB must be a pretty dangerous place to work.

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True to form, Alessi goes back to the old claim that the taxpayers are receiving more money than ever from the dispensary. This is not only false, it refuses to address the question of how much money the taxpayers’ would be receiving IF the dispensary were well managed rather than run as some sort of perverse ATM for the benefit of its board members. It’s easy being the big man in town by doling out checks to organizations when the taxpayers are actually paying for it.

As we have pointed out time and again, the dispensary was returning more money to the Wicomico taxpayer BEFORE Ron Alessi and Stewart Haemel were appointed to the board. For people of Alessi’s intellect, we even provided pictures.

The time has come for the members of the WCLCB to stand before the public and answer questions, not hide in their basements and tell tall tales.

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