As Iyam scribing this week’s missive to yew, Felicia, the biggest thing on everyone’s mind ain’t what is gonna happen in the election. Though, you’d think that might be the foist query in everyone’s mind. Nope, the foist thing is, “Thank goodness, the commercials will be ending.”
Effen there is one thing that has everyone in agreement it is that the constant stream of commercials for, against, and about a candidate will cease once the polls close. When yew read this, the election will be done, the decisions will have been made, and life can git back to something resembling “normal.”
Of course, in our little corner of the universe it is very difficult sometimes to figger out jest what is “normal.” Chaos can be normal effen that’s what the usual state of affairs is. Here in the Asylum by the Sea, it’s hard to know what normal is, but I guess we’ll be in it.
Yew know it’s the beginning o’ November cuz Cobina was around the Green and saw that the city workers were beginning to put up the Christmas decoration – no, not “holiday” decorations, Christmas decorations. I see that Noo Haven got a large tree for its Green, and the television stations were heralding it as a “holiday” tree.
I know that people contend we have a “war on Christmas,” but I think it’s jest the PC police worrying that someone’ll be offended if we use the word “Christmas.” Sorry, effen someone feels offended, the problem really is their’s, dontcha think? They are looking to be offended, or are so thin skinned, things like that offend them. It’s all jest plain silly.
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Sammy Bluejay was around and sez that everyone is still perty much impressed with the fack that the “bad ole days” are not with us anymore. As yew know, in the old daze, some very shady things were done to make one candidate look bad, or damage was done to their signs as if this was gonna make someone change their minds.
Over the years there have been a few October surprises, and they can be classified as “nefarious,” in that they were rumors or actions taken by one candidate’s supporters over another, and these rumors or actions were done in setch a way the opponent looked very bad. We remember not-so-nice graffiti being scrawled, and one candidate getting the blame, when, in fack, it was the candidate that was person’s own supporters defaming their own candidate, but hoping it was blamed on the other side. Yeah, we’ve actually seen that.
This year there ain’t been no massive vandalism, no threats of jobs or losing one’s job – at least none we’ve hoid – effen the people didn’t support the “right” man for the job.
Sammy was wondering though, and, again, we’ll find this out by the time yew read this. In the last two gubernatorial elections, some cities had to keep polls open because of fear of “voter suppression.” What in fact happened in those cities was it was felt the right candidate was falling behind. Sooo, we remember hearing of bus loads of people being brought into districks in order to make sure things went off as planned.
People don’t think voter fraud is a big isshew – at least that’s what the say publicly. There are some perty interesting things that have been reported at least anecdotally over the years that raise one’s eyebrows. It’s quite something.
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Cobina was traversing around in her gassamobuggy and noticed that a few streets about the berg have been milled so that they might be paved sometimes soon. Methinks the kopecks for these projects came from found money that the city didn’t use, but still had hanging around. Of course, effen it’s used it has to be used for the purposes intended. Sooooo, there are streets ready to be paved.
Well, based on what I’ve seen and felt viz. the weather, the pavers better git to it before the frost sets in, and based on the very chilly mornings we’ve had of late, that could be any time now. Yew know that paving streets in the cold and frost can create problems. Heck, we have seam problems all over town cuz o’ the frost, it’ll be worse effen it gits too cold.
Let’s hope everything gits done before Jack Frost decides to park his backside for the next few months. It’ll be very problematic after that. To add to the problem, the constant rain we’ve had over the last several weeks ain’t been making it easier, either. Twice in the last couple o’ weeks, low-level grades have had to be closed for fear of flooding – like the railroad underpasses and Beach Street near the Water Treatment Plant.
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Nelly Nuthatch was here t’other day, and made mention of the fack that two weeks ago a nice guy was named the “Hispanic of the Year” — a great choice and wonderful example o’ the community. But Nelly had a great question making a pernt, when and where is it gonna end?
Right now, we have an Irishman of the Year, an Italian-American of the Year, and now an Hispanic of the Year, effen I belonged to another group, and yew can pick ‘em out if yew wish, I’d wonder when my ethic group was gonna be included in this United Nations of honorees.
In fack, some in the Actors Colony have posited that same query. They wanna know effen we can expeck more and more additions to the current number. This might be a can o’ worms nobody wants to open, but things like this usually mean that instead of adding to the number, the entire process might be ditched and no more honorees added. We shall see. In this era of “me, me, me” things can get outta hand rapidly.
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Still no decision, but people are getting more and more convinced that the city will be on the business end of a Tier IV decision when the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) finally makes its decision. Iva Lootey was here and sez that whilst the mayor, Nancy Rossi, and chairman of the council, Ron Quagliani, were put on the board, and City Treasurer Mike Last, given a non-voting status, the ultimate decision will be made.
This kind o’ falls into the time table that we heard about several months back, honeychile. We reported back then that the final decision to put the city under even more control with Tier IV would be made probably around election time. Well, now that the “election cycle” is over, the attention of what the MARB will do next is even more focused.
Like we have said before, effen they do go to Tier IV, everything that has to do with expenditures, contracts, raises, revenue, etc., will be controlled by the state panel. The mayor and City Council will be ==at best – rubber stamps. They will have no authority to change decisions made by the panel, and putting the mayor and council chairman are just cosmetic changes to improve the optics. That is always a concern for things like this.
Still, Iva asked the question that more than one person has posed during the last several months since the MARB was first announced last December to wit: didn’t then-Mayor Ed O’Brien know that bonding for the deficit payoff would mean the city would be under scrutiny? Effen he did, why didn’t he say anything. Effen he didn’t, how could he not know.
Almost a year into the process we still don’t have answers to those questions.
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With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,