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September 29, 2005

The Good, The Bad & The Condescending.

The Good.
I'm sure you've all heard the commercials for Go!Fest featuring Ron and MichMich (finally-something she can do! A voice-over!). For the record, Ron throwing the weight of the Mayor’s office behind a new venture like Go!Fest, is a good thing.

In case you are unaware of what Go!Fest is, the City’s press release describes the event thusly: Go!Fest celebrates how Chattanoogans of all abilities live, work and play together. This Fall Festival is an inclusive, free event targeted to those with disabilities, their families and caregivers.

That’s great and I, along with the entire WME staff, intend to be there. Our city isn’t the friendliest environment if you are physically challenged and it’s truly good that we are reaching out to our own citizens who face these challenges. It should have happened years ago, but it's nice that it’s happening now.

So, MichMich staging a publicity stunt featuring Ron playing wheelchair basketball with the Siskin Rebounders to get some media attention is exactly why they invented publicity events. I’ve heard from some folks who feel that it was insensitive of Ron to pull the wheelchair stunt. If you feel it was crass, I can't tell you how to feel, but I, of all freakin’ people, am giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one. I wish them success and hope that Go!Fest is helpful to those who deal with getting around in a hostile physical environment.

The Bad.
That said, can we ever expect anything from this administration that isn’t a photo op? Sure, a mayor does these kinds of things. All well and good. But, can we expect anything more? Like new jobs? Tenants for Enterprise South? Infrastructure upgrades? The absence of substance from the Littlefield administration is starting to get uncomfortable.

The Condescending.
In the commercial Ron says, “It all starts with compassion.” Like hell it does.
The physically handicapped do not need 'compassion.’ They aren’t sinners or drug addicts. They, either by genetics or physical trauma, experience lost or altered use of some aspect of their person.

What they need is for the Americans With Disabilities Act to be enforced and for thoughtful design to be incorporated into our public spaces. For instance, the cobblestones at the south end of the Market Street Bridge and the south end of the Walnut Street Bridge, while nifty as they were pulled from Ross’ Landing before the 21st Century Waterfront project, are a bitch to get over if you’re in a wheelchair (not to mention on a bicycle or motorcycle.) Sure, there are nearby alternative paths, but damn that is some rough going.

The differently-abled aren’t charity cases, Ron. All of us--any of us--could be moments from that condition. Get over yourself.

p.s. Did you clear the theme song "Going to a Go!Fest" with the Rolling Stones or their publishing company? Cuz, 1. they will sue (y)our ass for improper use and 2. the altered lyrics chanted over the original "Going to a Go-Go" track are really cheesy.

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September 21, 2005

St. Elmo Billboard: Wish You Weren’t Here.

St. Elmo is up in arms over a garish new billboard that the City is allowing at the entrance to their historic neighborhood. The board, a towering 45-feet high, is contrary to existing zoning rules and appears to have sneaked in under the radar. Or not, depends on who you talk to.
St. Elmo, like Highland Park, has pulled itself up by it’s own bootstraps over the past decade because private individuals bought those bombed out houses and restored them. Lovingly. Without any government help at all.
Which is just fine with them--no one was looking for hand-outs. But the neighborhood really feels torpedoed by this move--they're quite shocked to think their government would collude against them to allow a billboard to go up that makes their neighborhood look like Disneyland. OK, more like Disneyland.
We got no less than six letters here on this subject at WME this morning. Now, the reason St. Elmo residents automatically thought of Ron Littlefield, who--have you heard--is the Worst Mayor Ever, is that while he used to be “a fierce champion of sign control,” according to a story in The Chattanoogan.com’s archives, once election season approached he “pushed through the greatest relaxation of sign controls in the history of Chattanooga’s sign ordinance opening up five miles of Highway 153 to new billboards.” Nine billboards went up almost immediately, on a previously pristine stretch of highway. Thanks Ron. Whore.
A few months later Ron announces he’s running for mayor and the payoffs, I mean, campaign contributions, started rolling in from the outdoor advertising community. According to election commission records, four out of six of the billboard owners on that stretch of 153 contributed to Littlefield the maximum allowed by law. So did other billboard owners and their family members. Cuz that’s how Ron rolls, yo. Hell, it could be worse. We’re lucky he didn’t appoint the head of ClearChannel Outdoor as the sign inspector.
So the St. Elmo folks all want to know if this one of Ron’s notorious backroom deals. I dunno. Ron claimed to be pro-neighborhood during the campaign, but we all know that that was just to drive the whole downtown vs. neighborhoods issue to get elected. It was bogus then and it’s bogus now. St. Elmo and Highland Park are both now thriving neighborhoods, that have passed the tipping point (TM Malcom Gladwell), because of our improved downtown, not in spite of it. Now that he’s elected, neighborhoods haven’t seen squat. Well, certain neighborhoods in Korea, Japan and China have been getting a lot of attention, but that’s another post altogether. Littlefield's Blueprint for Better Neighborhoods [see crappy campaign brochure of the same name]--must still be on the drafting table.
To be fair, if this isn’t Ron helping a friend skirt the zoning ordinances to make some cash, then he can undo this. It’s called a bully pulpit, Ron. Hop up on it.
Same goes for Friend-of-Ron Manny Rico. Manny claimed at the Council meeting tonight to have just found out about the four-and-a-half-story billboard (way to stay on top of the issues in your neighborhood, dude). If Bob Corker didn’t like something, he found a way to put a stop to it. I think that man could roll-back daybreak if he put his mind to it. Hey Ron, pretend it's your Brainerd neighborhood getting screwed, if you need some motivation.
Insiders at City Hall tell WME that, while the official story is that the billboard appears to be grandfathered into the sign ordinance because the building that was torn down on it's site had signage on the side. But the actual placement of the billboard is a violation and thus can be stopped. We’ll see if Ron does the right thing by St. Elmo. I, for one, am holding my breath. Starting…Right…

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September 15, 2005

Fast Train Coming. Not.

Now that Ron and MichMich are back from their Fantabulous Taxpayer Financed Asian Vacation (Part 1), no doubt with contracts in hand, from eager potential businesses just waiting to open up here in Chattanooga, we'll assume Worst-Mayor Ron might actually get down to work and start making good on all those awesome campaign promises he laid on us last Spring. [BTW, did anyone else think it was a little bit tacky for Ron to be doing the Tokyo Two-Step while our city was acting as a secondary staging ground for homeless evacuees from our nation's worst disaster ever (TM Billy Blades)? You just cannot pry that man's lips from the public teet. Especially when a free trip abroad is in the mix. However, props to SuperTodd Womack for his awesome efforts to make our city's response to the crisis successful. He was a true leader. That man will make a fine mayor some day. The sooner the better.]
Now, you may or may not remember, but Ron made a lot of promises during the campaign--and not all of them were to Ward Crutchfield, Union reps and Dan Johnson. Here's a small sampling quoted directly from Littlefield campaign brochures, just to refresh your memory: Ron will target high paying tech jobs...be the chief salesman for our city...keep Chattanooga on the short-list of companies looking for a new home...focus on teaching...re-engineer roads...construct new roads...create greenways...pave sidewalks...clean-up Chattanooga Creek...redesign I-75(!)...aggressively seek full-service grocery stores(?)...keep Chickamauga Lock construction on schedule.
Whatever, dude. None of those even get close to our very favorite campaign lie, er, promise. We want the Choo Choo! The Littlefield Express! That's right--bring on the Bullet Train to Glory--or at the very least Atlanta!
Ron promised to 'connect Chattanooga to its future' more than once. Apparently, he's got amazing business skills that he's kept hidden, literally all of his life. Because, I refuse to believe that someone would intentionally put out a brochure this ugly, if they didn't intend to build the Bullet. So, it's going to cost billions and billions of dollars that nobody has. So what. Ron said he would do it, and we believe him. Not.
So we're counting the days, literally. We here at Littlefield: Worst Mayor Ever are eager to take our first trip to Atlanta on Ron's Magic Bullet. I don't suppose that the Bullet Train--when he builds it--will be arriving at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo platform, what with it being owned by Power Structure Bad Boy Jon Kinsey and all, but wherever he puts it-we'll be waiting. And waiting...

Official Littlefield Bullet Train Count: Day 150

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September 05, 2005

Is there an Idiot's Guide to Mayoral Initiatives?

We get so many letters about this WorstMayorEver Littlefield staffer, that we thought we’d share our fave and it's a classic. Now, it’s entirely possible that you don’t know who Michelle Michaud is, and for that you should count yourself lucky. Seriously, if you've seen the movie Clueless, you're up to speed.

You may remember that Michelle used to be an anchor on Channel 12 (she was known as Michelle Johnston at that time). Then again, you may not, because her show got such low ratings.

Before we go on, please keep in mind that MichMich is WorstMayor Ron’s Director of Mayor’s Initiatives. [Oooh, foreshadowing!] Given the fact that nothing has been initiated, that’s gotta be a sweet gig.

As our story begins, Michelle and her co-anchor Jonathan Panker had just come out of a network Entertainment segment on their morning show and the well-spoken, and apparently well-read, Mr. Panker ‘tossed’ [it’s a TV term--it means ad-lib—a talent Michelle was renowned for lacking] to Michelle saying that he had just finished the book that was the subject of the preceding segment and that he had enjoyed it.

Jon Panker: It was a fantastic book. Have you read it?

MichMich: What was?

JP: The book in the Entertainment Update; it’s been the number one book in the country for the past eight weeks.

MichMich: *giggles that Sorority-Girl-Don’t-Be-Silly Giggle* Oh, I don’t read! If it’s any good, it’ll be, like, made into a movie!

Panker, Camera Crew and Producer in booth: Jaws on floor—no one says a word for like infinity and a day as the teeny-tiny bit of credibility left in the Channel 12 newsroom vanishes into the ether.

I love that story. Let the Mayoral Initiatives commence!

Thanks to a former Channel 12 employee for reminding us of this little snippet.

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