Well sweetie, whilst Iyam scribing this week’s missive to you, it still feels like the tropics hereabouts. Hurricane Nate is traveling this away with its rain and wind – though not the same as everyone else go earlier in the week. That drought they were talking about will probably git erased cuz the guy on the boob tube said we can git a lotta the wet stuff.
Needless to say, the rain ain’t the only thing that the area is dealing with. The parade dodged a bullet and went off despite some threatening skies and on-and-off showers. Still the crowd wasn’t what was expected. Nobody wants to go out, no matter how warm, and get soaked. That’s what happened in the morning with downpours so people stayed home. Still it was a grand parade.
Here in the Asylum by the Sea, hizzoner must be talking to himself. Effen things could go more haywire for a campaign, I can’t see how. Hizzoner, as yew remember, was supposed to win last month’s primary in a walk. Everyone, including his challenging opponent Nancy Rossi, expected him to win with a few council seats picked off in the process.
Well, the voters – those that showed up – had different ideas and gave Rossi a narrow win. That has kind o’ put the entire political class in reset mode. The mayor has decided as yew know to launch a write-in campaign, wherein his name is writ on the ballot. He hopes to do what his predecessor didn’t do and git enuff votes that way to continue his tenure. Nobody is giving him much of a chance, but in this topsy-turvy political world who knows what’ll happen.
Whilst that is going on, the slings and arrows of each campaign are trained directly on the other camp. There ain’t been much in the way of the policy department, but a whole lotta slinging at each other. Effen it ain’t one calling t’other a spend-thrift or a tight wad, it’s something else.
Effen yew want negative, this campaign thus far has been very negative.
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Sammy Bluejay was here t’other afternoon and he made the observation that one party that ain’t been heard from much is Dave Riccio. So, he means “party” in the personal and group sense. Whilst the two Demmies are hurling as much muck at each other as they possibly can, the GOP candidate hasn’t really done much in the PR department and is little heard from regarding much.
Now would be the time to set his little self apart from t’others and show how a change of personnel in the Actors Colony is much needed. Ain’t it time – with three-plus weeks left in the campaign – to start telling everyone what a great mayor you’ll be and how yore gonna change things? Jest asking.
Davey and his campaign are kind of hugging the sidelines watching the mud get chucked from one side of the Democratic Party to the other. It might be fun, but it won’t win elections.
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But getting back to how thing haven’t quite gone the way everyone expected in this go-round. Hizzoner had two nasty pieces of news in the past week or so. One had to do with the $8 million payout the state is offering the city regardless of how the budget battle turns out. Hizzoner is mulling that one over and will make a decision. It has been a bone of contention betwixt himself and his opponent.
But the kicker came late last week when Standard & Poors, the people who are responsible for credit rating cities and towns, put our city on a “watch list.” The fack that the city has bonded to git rid of the debt, and the fack that it’s hoping to put the high school renovation on the front burner, mixed with the budget battle and the possibility of an $8 million hole in spending, all jumbled together to help the decision.
That’s a decision O’Brien and his team didn’t need at this particular juncture and it was an announcement that saw candidates pounce on the issue. Meanwhile, John and Jane Q are trying to make heads or tails outta the entire matter, and aren’t sure effen they are being told the entire story by anyone anywhere.
S&P putting the city on a watch list is yet one more hurdle the O’Brien team is gonna hafta maneuver effen they wanna win in November. Right now, they hafta be asking themselves effen the elections fates are toying with them. It certainly seems like it.
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My query is this: the City Council approved the sale of bonds for the city’s debt and the high school renovation months ago. Yet, except for the news that the city is taking out Bond Anticipation Notes (BANs) we ain’t heard much about the sale of said bonds.
Yew know as well as I do that effen the bonds were a done deal the administration would be trumpeting it from the stoop at City Hall. Soooo, what are the details of said sale? Inquiring minds and taxpayers wanna know. It ain’t like the taxpayers have been much in the loop, but they should be.
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Nelly Nuthatch happened to be traversing the berg a few days ago, and now she sees that “Coming Soon: the Haven” banners are now canvassed over the fencing that was put up a month or so ago around the block from Main-First-Richards Place and Water Street. Hmmm. Is this a low-ball visual aid to remind people that the city administration was working on this projeck?
I told yew a couple weeks ago, one candidate told me that the questions concerning the Haven weren’t posed: How are things going with the Haven? They were posed: “The Haven isn’t going to happen, is it?” Call it what yew will but one wonders effen the candidates getting the queries and the appearance of the banners are related.
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When we were talking about the Haven developments – or lack thereof – Iva Lootey happened to be in the room and mentioned that jest before school opened there was some excavating around the building and into the student parking lot to the Cove River.
At the time the rumor was the work had to do with the high school reconstruction, but some are having second thoughts. Y’see there is work going on in the city for gas line revamping, and the people might’ve been jumping the gun a big.
Yeah, there are Gilbane signs regarding the high school, and some work is happening to move the shop area to the former “girls” gym. It is expected, even, that the G-wing of the school will tumble down like the walls of Jericho, but there’s still a nagging feeling amongst many that the full revamp projeck – like the Haven – is a mirage and sooner or later the entire episode will end. We shall see.
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The wag came in and told Cobina that things are starting to nettle at the high school, and they wouldn’t be surprised effen there is a full-on revolt of the professional staff. I told yew a couple weeks back of an incident that happened concerning a couple of shop teachers – teachers who were accused of bucking the administration four years ago when the whole shop issue came up.
Well, there is a widespread belief that much like what happened to one or two others, a dossier of crimes and misdemeanors – real or imagined – is being cobbled together by the powers that be in order to put up a case of dismissal. This ain’t the foist time this has happened. And remember, even though the charges are trumped up, the newspapers get ahold of the story, and a person’s reputation takes a nosedive.
Well, this time after what they’ve seen happen all too often, the staff is getting restless and angry. It’ll be interesting to see how the union, which ain’t trusted much by the staff at McDonough Plaza, handles these cases. It’s already an urban legend that the leadership is in the hip pockets of one or two higher-ups. This is gonna be a test case for many.
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With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,