I'm back Weekend Round Up

JAML is back at it after a few weeks off.  I would like first to apologize to all of you for my time away.  I wont go into great details, but just so it's understood I will at least justify.  Please know that the last few weeks have been stressful and very draining.  Not only was it hard to find the time to post, but it was hard to find the time to even take the notes that I do to work on this blog.  As it is, I'm not actually going to be working off notes this evening.  This week though, I will get back on track and be running at a normal schedule.  Whatever we've decided that is on here. 

What took me away was of the highest of priorities.  We all know there are more important things in life than a political blog and I assure you that this was one of them.  Luckily it coincided with a very dead period in the news, so not much was missed.

Now on to the round up:

-The biggest news (if its true)  comes from the claims of a CCC poster that Tom Galligan has already made up his mind to run for mayor next time around.  Rosefforp says that he had lunch with Tom and that he made the proclamation then.  I don't know Roseforrp so I have no way to know the validity of this statement.  That also means I have no reason to believe that it was made up either.  As reported by The Oracle a while back TG was considering this move.  If Roseforrp is correct, he may have already made up his mind.  You can read the story here.

-In other news the rains of this past week led to flooding downtown again.   This time affecting Industrial Nightmare.  With more steady rains in the forecast for the next several days, this could be devastating to a business that operates about 6 weeks a year and attacks people from all around.  Thus proving that the canal would not only help lure business, but help the ones already in place.

-Jiyabird has gone to the birds and is apparently hoping to get slapped with slander.  God I hope so.

-The council is busy working on the budget for the next fiscal year.  More details should emerge in the coming weeks and it will be interesting to see how the mayor is able to work with the council on this one.

-Achilles Pizza closed down this week.  A sad happening, but not surprising.  The location was not great and the opening was probably rushed.  The food was good when we went but the atmosphere was still being worked on.  I know its hard for a first time business owner, but its best to wait till your completely finished before you open the door.  Here's hoping the best for John and his employees.

-Finally, my deepest condolences to "Jules".  One of, if not my favorite posters on the political blogs.  I was very saddened to here the news of her loss.  And I say that about someone who I have never actually met.  And I hope that tells her the level of respect that I have for her from her posts.  Your family is in my thoughts and prayers.

Jerry "The King" Lawler's Weekend Round Up

Even if your not a fan of profesional wrestling, chances are you still have some vague familiarity with the name of Jerry "The King" Lawler.  He is one of the most famous wrestlers of all time and is probably the most famous of wrestlers who did not make a name for himself by actually wrestling primarily for a national organization.  I can still remember watching him on Saturday mornings on USWA as a kid.

Lawler started off as a disc jockey for a Memphis Tn. radio station and exchanged free ads for wrestling training.  He soon took off and became one of the promotions biggest stars.  He went on to have one of the biggest feuds in wrestling history with actor/comedian Andy Kaufman in the early 80's.  The whole ordeal was so perfectly pulled off by both participants that it had much of the country not only believing that the two hated each other but that the whole ordeal was "real".  Lawler would go onto admit much later that not only was it in fact staged but that the two were actually very good friends.

Lawler would join the then WWF in the early 90's as a commentator who would occasionally wrestle.  He was in one of the hottest feuds in the promotion (and of his national career) when he had to take a leave to defend himself against rape charges by a 15 year old girl in Louisville.  It caused him to have to be written abruptly out of the feud and removed from tv.  The charges were later dropped and the girl admitted to making the accusations up. 

Minus a few months in 2001 Lawler has been working for the WWE ever since as a commentator and even occasionally wrestling on the company's show "Monday Night Raw".

He was doing both this past Monday in Montreal when on air the 62 year old suffered a heart attack.  He had wrestled earlier in the evening and was doing commentary when he began to, what sounded like snore on the air.  Both commentators where soon silent as Lawler had passed out while working because of the heart attack.  He was immediately given medical attention and then rushed to the back and eventually to a Montreal hospital where he was stablized.

The good news is that not only is alive and OK, but that he is expected to make a full recovery that according to doctors will allow him to resume all his prior activities.  WOW!  And a most interesting note to this is that doctors say that being "ring side" doing commentary was huge in his safety as WWE has medical personel there to assist the wrestlers if need be and he was treated immediately saving him from brain damage or worse.

As Lawler likes to say: "Its good to be the King."


Now to the round up:

-Just a few notes this week, two of which have to do with the sewer dept.  First of most immediate concern to some of you it was discovered that because of a problem in the soft ware the billing office uses that some customers were undercharged for a time.  The correction led to some "sticker shock" for some people.  I would still advise any who have any questions about their bill to contact the sewer billing office.

-Second from the sewer dept. is the need to bond more than they are capable of right now at the current rates.  This was covered in the previous post so I wont go into it very much.  Just needless to say that there is at least a chance that rates could go up again.  Ask ol' Mikey about his reducing rates next time you see him.

-Finally, more progress is taking place at Vissing Park and much of it close to completion.  This was a great move by the city that turned a negative into a positive.  We should all be grateful for that.

Mayors Lack of Vision Costly to Citizens

An interesting thread started by Mike Hutt is racing along over on the chatter.  It seems that the city will have to bond yet more money for the for the pumping stations related to the fixing of the CSOs.  The problem becomes that the sewer dept. can only bond about $41 million at the current sewer rates.  So in order to bond that amount of money, the sewer department will more than likely have to raise rates again.  So next time you see Mikey Moore ask him about those rate cuts he told implied when he was running.

This was an inevitable end to the ordeal unfortunately.  The cost of this program REQUIRED by the EPA hasn't changed that much.  What has changed is the method of paying for it. 

Under Tom Galligans plans tax revenues from the canal district would have gone to paying off the bonds required to complete this project.  Plus the canal helps relieve downtown flooding and works with the pedestrian bridge to create a thriving downtown.

Now we get none of those benefits and instead of business paying the bill, we as sewer customers get to cover the whole amount.  And in one sentence I've managed to describe Mikey and his followers fatal flaw that we all must now pay for.  Short sightedness.

Little Mikey's platform of lets do as little as possible and save us all money just doesn't hold water in today's world.  The world we live in is ever changing and the standards that communities hold themselves to is changing as well.  There will continue to be other changes throughout the city's future that will have to be made because of this.  Ignoring this fact and waiting to be told what to do and having to do it at the last minute is what got us in this mess in the first place. 

The city has had a CSO problem for quite some time, but wasnt made to fix the problem so just went on about life as if nothing was wrong.  The problem was, it was only going to get worse and one day the city was going to told to fix the problem.  The longer we waited, the more costly it was going to be.

Mikey's and his moore-ons views are shortsighted and costly to the rest of us.  His lack of vision and creativity is even more costly.  As stated above Galligan had a creative plan that brought the city in compliance with the EPA, solved flooding problems in downtown, beautified and grew the city and had a creative way to pay for it.  Mikey's solution is boring and completely lacking any creativity.  And so is his method to pay for it.  Through billing us, the citizens.

Remembering 9/11

  It has been 11 years since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.  I will not try to speak on the events or the tragedy as there are people far more qualified to do that properly.

  What I will briefly talk about is how I felt that day.  I can describe how felt in one word.  Scared.  Not hiding in the corner scared or crying scared.  But a nervous scared.  We all lost something that day beyond the tragic human loss of life.  We lost that security that we all felt up until that day.  With our mighty army and two grand and vast oceans to protect us, I think most of us felt like we safe to go about our daily lives without any threat of being attacked on our home soil.

  We at least some of that, that day. 

  I can remember driving around that day and watching the news and wondering if it was over or was there more to come.

  As time has passed those feelings obviously diminished. 

  Then a few years ago a friend of mine told me that he found a complete video package of the days events on YouTube and he makes it a point to watch them every year to remember where we were that day and just how tragic and scary it was. 

  I've been doing the same ever since and now give you the opportunity to do the same if you like.

There is actually a group of YouTube videos that will take you all the way up until the nightly news or later if you so desire.  Just search and I'm sure you'll find it and about a hundred more.

Art Modell's Weekly Wrap Up

Sadly, we had a few choices to memorialize this week as the world also lost Michael Clarke Duncan.  But I chose to go with NFL owner Art Modell. 

Modell is one of the more fascinating and interesting sports figures of all time.  Modell started his professional life in PR and TV.  Then in 1961 he purchased the NFL's Cleveland Browns franchise for $4 million.  He immediately took an active role in team operations firing legendary coach Paul Brown in 1963.  In 1964 under his management the team went on to win the NFL Championship game.

But Modell had two much larger stories in his life. 

First he used his back round in TV to help start the process of networks bidding for NFL programming.  This is the foundation that led to the current boom in TV rights sales that has ESPN paying a billion dollars to the NFL just to show Monday Night Football.

Second is the sadder side of Modell.  Modell was apparently not the greatest person with money.  And he constantly struggled with his finances.  Under the terms that he purchased the Browns for, he was the land lord of Cleveland's stadium which also hosted the city's MLB team the Indians.  Thus he received the opportunity to have income from a second professional sports franchise.  However do to his need to continue to squeeze the Indians for as much money as possible to help his own financial situation, the Indians asked for and received a new stadium from the city.  This led to a loss of revenue for Modell.

Still financially strapped and playing in a stadium with no luxury boxes Modell went to city leaders with desire for them to build his NFL franchise a new stadium.  The city said no.  Modell told city leaders that he needed a new stadium to ensure the Browns franchise would be able to remain in Cleveland.  But again officials told Modell no.

With his family secretly close to bankruptcy, Modell was able to strike a deal with the city of Baltimore and the NFL to move the team there.  In exchange for breaking his lease with the city, Modell agreed to leave the name and records with the city of Cleveland to be used when an expansion team was able to be located there a few years later.  Modell was alowed to take his players and personnel with him to Baltimore to start a new (as far as records are concerned) as the Raven's.   Cleveland fans were angry and bitter and still have never forgiven or fully healed from this action despite receiving a replacement franchise in 1999.

Despite his Ravens winning the 2001 Superbowl, Modell was still not able to get his financials situated and in 2003 the NFL ordered Modell to sell a majority interest in the Ravens. 

Two semi local ties to this story are: Baltimore was searching for an NFL franchise to replace the Colts.  Which had left the city to relocate to Indianapolis.  Second, because they were an expansion franchise, the new Cleveland Browns were given the number one draft pick of the 1999 NFL draft where they selected former UK quarterback Tim Couch.

Modell died early Thursday morning at the age of 87.

Now on to the news:

- I'll start with the news that most of us can all agree that we hate to hear.  But Riverfields is at it again.  They have amended their lawsuit and continue to annoy all but a few Louisville "East Enders" with their desire to halt an east end bridge and continue with only a downtown bridge.  Officials say they have no intention of stopping which sounds like good news to me and lets hope that the lawsuits just end up being a huge waste of THEIR money.  You can read the N/T story here.

-In other news, the council once again had to swat Mikey boy away again as this time they overrode his pocket veto on the Capital Purchases ordinance.  You know when this administration began, I started one of those little "dash counter" things on my wall whenever there was an override.  Its been filling up my wall very fast.

-The Oracle was on fire this week.  He reported that: 1. Mikey has told Matt Owen he will need to apologize for his request of city computer logs and 2. That if the election was now, Tom Galligan would run again.  You can read all of Oracle's great stuff here.

Just quick reaction to these items.  If Matt Owen is wrong, he still owes no one an apology.  And I don't believe that he is completely wrong at worst.  And two, while no one would love to see Galligan be mayor again more than JAML, I do have some concerns about his electability.  But I'll go into that more fully sometime later.

-Kelley doesn't like some of the language or some of the photos of "wimmens" posted on Gawnews.  Well I've been able to locate a picture of what I'm told could be Kelley and this would explain it all:

-Finally, Clark County Councilman Danny Yost and his wife, Mary, were arrested for domestic battery after having a fight over a laptop.  Sources say that they were both anxious to check the JAML blog to see if he had returned from his vacation weekend.

That will wrap it up.  Remember to like the FB page for updates to the blog.  And check back Tuesday for a little remembrance of 9/11.  See ya then.

Kelley Doesnt Like Goliath. (exclusive video)

"Do you have any comment on the appearance of communications between the council and mayor appearing on other local websites, including sites with swear words and pictures which objectify women? Is there some way Chatter can also subscribe to these intracity communications? If you want everyone to know something, this is really the place to share your dirty laundry."  -Kelley

On Friday I wrote and published my weekend review and told myself that I was taking a vacation from politics until we got back on Wednesday.  (cruise ship rates will make that decision easy)  But before we departed on Saturday morning curiosity got the better of me and I saw Kelley's remarks.  I tried to point out that it really had nothing to do with post and of course was shot down MDH b/c well he's all in on Mikey no matter what the cost to our community.

So Kelley doesn't like Goliath.  Well I think we can all figure this out.  She's mad because they don't bow to the idiocy that is Mikey.  And now she's tired of it. 

JAML has received "exclusive" footage of Kelley tell Goliath to get off Mikey's back.  She is very distraught and obviously a little confused because she's so upset.  Take a look.

We will be returning home later today and I'm interested in what I've missed as a weekend that I thought would be low on the news gauge apparently had some small stories here and there.  See ya then.