« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »

November 17, 2005

Behind the Wheels at Go!Fest.

This came to the Old Mail Bag recently. I'm keeping the writer's identity anonymous, although it wasn't requested. It’s an interesting look behind the scenes of this summer’s Go!Fest. I’ll reprint it verbatim. My comments in [brackets]:

As part of the start-up for "Go!Fest" formerly known as Noogability [well, Go!Fest is a better name], I would like to clarify that this festival started before [Worst Mayor Ever: Ron] Littlefield took office. It was a grassroots effort by most of the non-profits and for-profits in this MSA to help those with some sort of disability or challenge have a "better quality of life" by bringing together all the services, products, technology, employers of those with disabilities, housing and, of great importance, recreation opportunities.

It came from the theme "Chattanooga is a great place to live, work and play". We added "for all abilities". There was great hope that the new mayor would back it and make it a city initiative with a website coming out of the festival where people looking at Chattanooga could see all that was available here for a better quality of life. Alexian and the Chamber are initiating a marketing campaign to make Chattanooga a retirement destination, so the senior section of the festival was to be significant. We were ecstatic when the mayor agreed to this.

However, he put it in the hands of Michelle Michaud and things went downhill from there. [Word.] No longer were decisions made by the "steering committee" made up of the original representatives that put the festival together. No longer was the direction of this festival going in the way that had been planned. It soon became a photo op for the mayor and Michelle and no one else would get any credit whatsoever.

The low turnout [ouch.] was mainly due to the fact that Michelle M. was over publicity and the word never really got out what this festival was all about. All publicity was about the mayor and his thoughts on this event. [In fairness, I thought there was a lot of publicity. Most of it was cheesy and/or demeaning and anything that involves a visual with Littlefield is gonna be tacky, but still, there was a lot of it.]

Michelle “Ms. If-You-Don't-Like-It-That's-Tough” was quick to tell people to "shut up" [Literally?] if they did not agree with her, even though she did not get what the festival was originally supposed to be about (namely a better quality of life for all abilities in this city). Needless to say many of the main players disappeared from meetings. Why come? Michelle did exactly as she wanted (which was to put the Mayor in the best light).

We soon realized what trouble this city was in for the next 4 years. [The line for that starts behind the Blades clan] Michelle pissed off the other presenting sponsor (UnumProvident) right from the start. Michelle demands things in the name of the mayor. She also tells the mayor to "shut up",[Literally? That must be satisfying. Let’s try it. Shut up, Ron! Nice.] We hardly heard him say anything at all, except about compassion. You are truly right that people with challenges do not want compassion. They want to be able to "level the playing field" a little more so they can do more for themselves and have a better quality of life. [The line for “Billy Blades is Truly Right” starts…etc, etc.]

We tried several different ways to get credit to sponsors and the organizations and individuals who were responsible for this festival to no avail. Michelle told us this was the mayor's initiative and no one would get publicity but him. I walked away from this with a certain amount of disgust for what had happened to this wonderful grassroots effort. It would have gotten the mayor more admiration had it been publicized that this was a "public-private" venture and the mayor was working with the people instead of having them work free of charge for him to get many publicity ops.

We still feel it was a great idea and a great festival. Many dedicated to better lives for those with disabilities or challenges worked hard to put it together and should have gotten public thanks. It just left a bad taste in the volunteers' mouths for the new city administration.

[P.S. If you think this letter is bad, you should see the letters we get about Missy. We haven't printed them because this is a family blog. So far.]

Comments to: worstmayorever@aol.com

Posted by Billy Blades at 11:33 PM | TrackBack