The only truly dead are those who have been forgotten. – Jewish Saying

I leave today to bury an old friend. A childhood friend. 

A few years ago I lost my childhood golfing buddy. Now it’s my baseball buddy.

At this rate who is going to remember me?

The following AP story just kind of leaves you wanting more information. (I searched but couldn’t find much else.)

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The Burlington City Council has voted to suspend the city’s chief administrative officer amid an ongoing dispute about the city-owned telecommunications provider, but Mayor Bob Kiss says he won’t do it.

In an 8-6 vote early Tuesday, the council passed a resolution calling for Jonathan Leopold to be put on administrative leave, with pay.

Leopold has been under fire amid revelations that Burlington Telecom, which provides telephone, cable and Internet, borrowed $17 million from the city but didn’t pay it back within 60 days, as required by its state license.

Kiss, who says he’s the only person who can suspend a department head, said Tuesday that Leopold’s suspension isn’t warranted and that it’s not in the best interests of the city. He won’t heed the resolution.

 Oh how I wish I could be at their next meeting!

I have a feeling it could be a good one.

I just checked airplane ticket prices … I can’t go for sure.

I attended a County Comprehensive Planning Committee yesterday. The committee was reviewing the boring narrative of one of the chapters. It was necessary work that needed to be done. The committee was mainly reviewing the information for accuracy and clarity.

Many times on a committee such as this there is one person who is also a wordsmith.  This time it was a retired teacher. They have a tough job. They are itching to correct every bad comma and semicolon but don’t want to be a pain in the butt about it.

I want to take this time to honor all those wordsmiths who do the job that needs to be done in public documents. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

You did it well Waldo. You did it well.

I recently came across an article I wrote three years ago. It is worth repeating…

Local Government Apathy – The Only Known Cure is Involvement

This is a discussion for the Intergovernmental Relations Class. 

The City of Kinston, NC voted last year in a referendum to go the way of non-partisan elections. They no longer want party labels in their local elections.  However, due to a clause in the Voters Right Act of 1965 Kinston needs federal approval before making any changes to their local elections. They were denied by the Justice Department of making this change.  Why?

The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

So, we have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, DC overturning a valid local referendum for the above stated reasons.  (Full background article here.) If I go any further in my description of this issue I am certain to be labeled a racist by someone.

 Comments are always welcome prior to class.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” — Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.)

Plato knew what he was talking about. This is why the new ebook, Why Your City Council Makes Dumb Decisions And What You Can Do About It, was written. I wanted to bring participation in politics down to the basics. Anyone can follow my instructions and begin to have influence in their local government. From there … anything is possible!

Download Here.

There has been a couple of glitches with the new website. The IT Department is working on them. Until those are worked out, posts will be short and few.

In the mean time a bug has been making the rounds throughout the Academy. Hasn’t been a good week.

Which is better, aldermen elected by wards, at large or a combination of both? This issue was discussed by the Academy’s Philosophy Class. The issue specifically dealt with the City of New Brunswick.

NEW BRUNSWICK — Call it the $100,000 question.

That’s the amount New Brunswick has spent in legal fees over the past year and a half to unsuccessfully block a group of residents from getting a question on the November ballot, one that asks whether to divide the city into wards for city council elections.

Now the city has tapped out its legal options and the question will be put to voters Nov. 3.

Critics call the city’s legal tactics a waste of taxpayer money. City officials say they’re just following the law. Political experts disagree on whether the city’s fight is over the top.

Since last fall, the city has lost three rounds of lawsuits with Empower Our Neighborhoods, or EON, involving petitions of residents’ signatures filed to the city.

“They’re fighting the members of the community they’re supposed to represent,” said Martin Perez, director of Coalition For Democracy, an umbrella group formed last month representing diverse city groups including EON.

Perez characterized the city’s legal battle as “incredible, callous and a waste of taxpayer money.”

Currently, all five of New Brunswick’s council members are elected at-large. The ballot question will ask whether the council should be expanded to nine members, with six elected by ward and three elected at-large. Voters were posed that exact question once before, in 1986, when a local group in New Brunswick put the initiative on the ballot, but voters rejected it, 3,765 to 2,510.

This is a philosophical question where there is no right or wrong answer. Over the long run it makes no difference if a city council is divided by wards or all/some of the members are elected at large.  It is believed that by changing from one system to another it will increase the number of citizens running for those positions.

What normally happens is that for the first election cycle or two there is an increase in number of city council candidates. Then the newness wears off and soon the city is back to the same apathetic state it was prior to the change. 

Sigh …

In addition to the new blog design and free ebook the is also a new Academy of Local Politics Store.

In the store you can find shirts and stuff with the new Academy of Local Politics logo.

Just in time for the Slamming Gavels Homecoming game!

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was having a new blog site designed. Well, here it is. I hope you like it. I sure do.

You will notice on the right sidebar, a box which will take you to my new ebook  WHY YOUR CITY COUNCIL MAKES DUMB DECISIONS … AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. It’s free! There is no reason not for anyone to download and read it. Pass it on to friends and family. Post a link on your website or blog.

If prior to reading this ebook you wish to nominate me for the Nobel Prize for Literature you can find that nomination procedure here. 

After reading,  any and all comments would be appreciated.

This post is intended for anyone who has ever thought about running for a local election, but didn’t know how to start planning an election campaign. Winning elections doesn’t just happen by accident. Winning elections is hard work. However, there is help.

The best book I have read on how to run for local office is … How to Run for Local Office by Robert J. Thomas. I highly recommend this book. If you don’t want to spend $19.95 for the book you probably don’t want to win an election very bad.

If you do want to try to win an election on the cheap, then at least visit Local Victory – Your Guide to Winning Elections.  This website has a warehouse of articles on running and winning elections.

If anyone knows of another book or website that can be a valuable campaign tool please leave a comment with your recommendation.

I was a student at UW-Eau Claire  on  May 4, 1970.  Anyone who was a student anywhere on May 4, 1970 remembers what happened on that date.

For anyone else who doesn’t remember that date,  Dan Lyksett of the Eau Claire Leader Telegram recalls in this story about construction of a new student center.

On May 4, four Kent State students were shot dead by National Guardsmen during a campus protest rally. On May 8, 1970, several days of angry but peaceful student protests in Eau Claire culminated in the creation of a memorial to the fallen students. Four crab apple trees were planted in a corner of the mall.

A plaque near the trees reads: “These trees – symbols of life and peace – are planted this day, May 8, 1970, in memory of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, students at Kent State University in Ohio who were killed on May 4, 1970.”

One of the trees later died and was replaced.

I checked with Mike Rindo, executive director of the university’s communications staff, who confirmed the construction of the new student center will displace the Kent State memorial. He said alumni who were involved in the May 1970 creation of the memorial are being consulted as the university works to find an acceptable replacement. He said the university is confident they’ll find an acceptable solution.

And maybe that’s OK. Maybe we sometimes need to balance our respect for the past with our duty to the future.

After all, they’re just trees, right?

Trees are a renewable resource. I have never had a problem with any tree coming done for any building project (if necessary) as long as new trees are planted to replace those being killed. I have been in many disagreements over the years on this kind of tree issue.

Here I go again.

Yes, they are just trees.

Candidates for election will do anything, at times, to get noticed. Royal Barber of Sylvania Township in Ohio came up with an idea I would have never thought of. He placed the names of his rivals for the township trustee position on Halloween tombstones in his yard.

Naturally, one of his opponents did not find the humor in it and demanded his name be taken off. There has to be a killjoy for everything. Mr. Barber complied with the request.

Another opponent, Penny Levine,  ”burst out laughing” when she saw the display.

My elections were always in April. Putting my opponents names on Easter eggs wouldn’t have had the same impact.

Good luck Royal. I can’t vote for you but I hope you win!

Government needs more people with guts and ingenuity.

Many people do not regard school districts as local governments. Well, they are. So they are fair game to point out disagreements in policy when they arise.  Here’s a doozy.

It was a dare Brian Brochman couldn’t refuse.

Some friends in a first-period class at Stillwater Area High School thought it would be funny if he dashed through a homecoming pep rally wearing nothing but a thong.

Brochman is a senior and a captain of the school’s cross country team. “They said: ‘Hey, you should do it. You’re a cross country runner; you’ll never get caught,’ ” Brochman said. “I started to think about it and thought, ‘Why not?’ “

So on Sept. 25, Brochman donned an olive-green thong, a Bill Clinton mask and running shoes. He hid in the locker room, raced through Pepfest and ran out the gym’s west exit. A friend later picked him up near Boutwells Landing senior housing community.

Officials figured out the would-be streaker was a member of the school’s cross country team — based on his speed and body type — and approached the team’s coach with a photo. Brochman said he ‘fessed up at that point.

His punishment was to spend two weeks in an “alternative to suspension” program called the Youth and Community Accountability and Prevention Program, which is held at the Washington County Historic Courthouse in Stillwater. His YCAPP program ends Friday.

Brochman said he knew he could be punished if he were caught but said he didn’t think he would face 10 days.

“I realize I should get punished some way — I’m not like an angel here,” he said. “They said you would get 10 days for streaking, but I wasn’t streaking.

Brochman’s mother, Jennifer Rolf, said she is furious her son has been pulled from school for a harmless prank.

“Webster’s defines ‘streaking’ as you have to be naked,” she said. “Two weeks for a practical joke that everybody laughed at and had a good time with? Come on.”

Joe Soucheray, the Mayor of Garage Logic, is famous for saying Minnesota is “the state where absolutely nothing is allowed.” That includes high school students having fun at a pep rally. How sad.

“What luck for rulers that men do not think.”  –  Adolf Hitler

Excuse me folks but I’m a little disgusted today.

I think I have to go post a sign on city hall.

Newspapers are important. More important than any website or blog. Even the obviously slanted newspapers. From reading the newspaper over bowl of cereal to relaxing in a recliner on a Sunday morning, I’ve always been an avid newpaper reader.

So was Angus Anderson.

Angus M. Anderson was born in 1913, so he was less than a year old when The Chetek Alert offered the lifetime subscription for $25, but his father Theodore, thinking of the benefit of getting the paper longer, took advantage of the offer and subscribed in his infant son’s name.
At the age of 13, the Anderson family relocated to California, and The Chetek Alert followed them.

An electrician by trade, in 1946, Angus and three other partners opened Arrow Development Co. in the Golden State. It started as a small machine shop, but worked with Walt Disney to create many of the original Disney attractions when the park opened in 1955, such as King Arthur’s Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, the Teacup Ride, and Mr. Toad’s Hot Rod Cars.
Angus and wife Phyllis moved to Park Rapids, Minn., in 1970 when they bought a farm. They retired in 2004, but remained in Park Rapids until 2004, when they moved to Oregon to be closer to their children.

Through this all, The Chetek Alert has been delivered to his doorstep, no matter where that happened to be.

He was 95 years old when he passed away July 26, 2009. Through his subscription he received almost 5,000 issues of The Chetek Alert, costing him less than a half of a cent per issue.

Thanks to Mike Seccombe at the Vineyard Gazette Online  I learned a new word:

Gerontocracy: government by old men.

As the children have grown and my wife and I have done a bit more traveling, I sometimes look in local papers for meetings that sound interesting. It does not matter where I go I find gerontocracy in action. I just didn’t know it had a name.

Now I do.

In these days when politicians are being vilified from coast to coast. When transparency and accountability are ignored. There still stands tall some elected officials whose reputations are beyond reproach. I would like to honor such a man.

I first met Harvey Stower when he was a State Representative and I was a rookie Mayor. I knew immediately he was someone special. For the past 13 years he has been the Mayor of Amery, WI. Harvey passed away this week.

If you wish to read more about this great man … read here.

If  every elected official had just half of Harvey’s class … what a great collection of elected officials we would have.

Did you walk or ride your bicycle to or from school? 

I did. Yes, it was a long time ago.

Well, it isn’t allowed in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Seventh-grader Adam Marino is getting a firsthand lesson in civil disobedience.

The 12-year-old and his mother, Janette Kaddo Marino, are defying Saratoga Springs school policy by biking to Maple Avenue Middle School on Route 9. The Jackson Street residents pedal more than four miles together each way to the middle school on nice days despite being told not to by school officials and police.

“I guess you can say that we continue to do what we feel is our right,” Kaddo Marino said recently. “We feel strongly we have a right to get to school by a mode of transportation we deem appropriate.”

The biking debate started last spring, when school district officials told Kaddo Marino that Adam was violating school rules by biking to class. Walking to the school also is not permitted.

Kaddo Marino challenged the policy and asked the school board to change it. The district charged a committee to review the rule, which was instituted in 1994.

At the start of school in September, Kaddo Marino thought that she had a nonverbal agreement with school officials to allow her son to ride his bike until a new policy was resolved. But on the night before classes started, school authorities called parents to say that walking and biking to school would not be tolerated.

When the pair stuck with their plan, they were met by school administrators and a state trooper, who emphasized that biking was prohibited, Kaddo Marino said.

I can’t go on. Read the entire disgusting article if you want, but I just can’t go on anymore.

Biking and Walking – Prohibited!