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July 26, 2007
From Each According To His Ability To Pay Taxes, To Each According To His Ability To Vote
Here at the World Headquarters of Ron Littlefield: Worst. Mayor. Ever. we recently received the July 2007 edition of Common Ground, "a newsletter from the Department of Neighborhood Services and Community Development."
The exact purpose of this eight-page, full-color, glossy publication is a little murky. One grammatically challenged headline reads, "North River Civic Center Host Volunteer Reception." I need to know this, why? I mean, I'm happy for them, to the degree that I can manage to care at all, but that bit of news is only slightly less useless than the story titled, "Mayor Littlefield Honors Local Tax Preparation Volunteers." Sure, It's nice that folks volunteered their time to help people with their tax return, but this is not the kind of information I really need from my local government. Especially, when I'm paying for the writers, production, printing and postal costs.
But then, as with most things Littlefieldian, you don't have to look far, to figure out the real purpose of this mailing. In fact, it was on page 2 under the heading "A Letter From the Administrator." Now, this is the second post that I've given Beverly Johnson a hard time, and for that, I'm sorta sorry. It's not that she isn't a nice person, it's just that she'd be so much more effective as the Administrator of Neighborhood Services if she were say, a librarian or a shop clerk.
Check it out: 'We are pleased to begin mail distribution of our Common Ground newsletter to every registered voter household in the city." In the next freaking sentence, she says that the newsletter has information that will "benefit all of our citizens." WTF?
If it would benefit all the citizens, then mail it to all the citizens. But it's so obvious that Ron Littlefield's crew is using Common Ground as a re-election brochure by sending it only to those who can vote for them. Clearly, Beverly unwittingly spilled the beans, likely having heard someone in a meeting mention their voter-targetting tactic, but forgetting to use the word 'secret'.
What's most amazing (beyond the political hackery) is that some moron tagged the publication with the phrase "Building Better Neighborhoods...Block By Block." This wouldn't be so insulting, or ludicrous, if it weren't for the virtual avalanche of e-mail I've been getting about the precipitous drop-off in the quality of public service that our neighborhoods are experiencing since Littlefield took over.
I cannot believe the amount of mail--especially from St. Elmo, North Chattanooga, Highland Park, MLK and Brainerd areas--where citizens are really steamed that trash and brush are not being picked up, street drains are clogged with debris, 311 calls get no response at all and on and on.
In the opinion of this citizen, this will be Ron's undoing. Vanity/legacy projects that waste hundreds of thousands of public dollars but accomplish little are one thing, but people get ticked when it takes weeks to get a Trash Flash pickup in front of their house. Not to mention the recycling fiasco (oops, just did).
In his "A Letter From the Mayor" section Ron, syntax be damned, says that he has "always held a soft spot in my heart for our neighborhoods." He has a funny way of showing it. He must have a soft spot in his head, if he thinks he can just talk about neighborhoods while the delivery of public works services continues to decline. This is one instance where empty rhetoric will not fool most of the people most of the time. You can say that you've made a commitment to neighborhoods (a statement that the MLK district finds laughable) and that you don't take that lightly, (which he claims in the letter), but when you don't follow through on promises to neighborhoods and you also don't even maintain the level of service of your predecessors, you'll be found out.
Comments to: worstmayorever@aol.com
| By Billy Blades | 07:50 AM
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