Snowmageddoblizzardocalypse--catching up on indoor backlog

Ya, don't worry 'bout me, I'm not caught under a massive snowplow mountain.  I'm just attempting to make a dent in my video backlogs while snowed in and all.

Actually, the snow's not bad here in Oklahoma.  I'm just glad I'm not in Massachusetts.

Preview:

Ya, getting stuck at home on a Saturday night sucks, doesn't it...unless you're an internationally minded armchair traveler via shortwave radio...which will suck if propagation conditions are lousy.  I got your Plan B right here, folks! Mollie B's Polka Party. True Confessions Time, people--I was a Yankovic  fan long before there was a Weird Al. And different nationalities are all related to the polka: Slovak, Hun, Czech, Mexican (you heard me: MEXICAN), German, etc.  Here's a reminder that Mexico used to be part of the Habsburg Empire before the Great War broke out.  Anyhoo, even if you don't cut rug, a polka will get you tappin' yer toes...as would its cousin, the schottische ( more history HERE). Don't leave out the ländler, either.

Oh sure, I already know--Frankie had something to do with time...

Speaking of Habsburgs, here's another toe-tapper for ya, straight from Austria...

Sunday mini-UPDATE: Emma Goldman's in the can. Chalk that one up to a snow day well spent.

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Monday miniUPDATE: Punched Out Judy and the Wharton performance at Summer Chautauqua ****FINALLY**** got on the ETN sked, with PoJ at midnight on Tuesdays. Talk about extreme prejudice.  Wharton fared better, different time slots in March.  Well, I'm just gonna have to produce more Punched Out Judys.  Oh yeah--and submit the Goldman performance.  Enid Public Library was the first to get a copy of that, just today.

Wednesday miniUPDATE: Working on the Henry James performance of Enid Summer Chautauqua.  I'm on a roll!
Also looking forward to the anniversary of my Guinness Baptism, too--St. Patrick's Day. Rooting thru the rye for Scot as well as Irish 78 rpm tunes. Mother Machree! Bob's your uncle.

Enid, tonight's Commission Study Session addresses ETN and some false claims by Kime

...particularly his claim that Chautauqua isn't censored.  Catch that on a repeat on ETN or online.  The bullshit runs thick.

On the sorta-bright side, I was advised to resubmit Punched Out Judy and Summer Chautauqua 2014--Edith Wharton.  Instead of thumb drive submission this time, it's gonna be hard-copy DVD.

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Saturday mini-UPDATE: Looks like Facebook decided I was a real enough person for THEM, months after I kept telling 'em to eff off each time they sent me an email notification, cuz they kept denying me access.  Well, Facebook can STILL kiss my ass. G+ is still better.

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"People often find it easier to be the result of a past than a cause of the future." --anonymous

This can't possibly happen here!

Link

Naw. Just not possible. Is it. Huh. Right?

It's a very good argument in favor of a pipeline, though, isn't it. Huh. Right?

While Enid builds dog parks and ferris wheels and massive hiking trails through pit bull puppy mill country, it pleads poverty when an elementary school's red capped fire hydrant needs to be made capable of fighting a school fire, so--burn, baby burn. Nobody in Enid government cares.

Happy V-Day! Fifty shades of Ulysses, Sunday mini-update

Things like that are always a novelty to the upcoming generation, but a good many of us old pharbts know that such phenomena crop up periodically, and some of us old pharbts from academia (literary, specifically) are all too painfully aware that what becomes the buzz of a given society, current or past, also becomes mandatory reading.

Such was the case of James Joyce and his ponderous tome, Ulysses, and such was the case with Freud, the Masters & Johnson studies, the Happy Hooker series, and on and on.  So no, I'm neither going to read the Grey book nor see the movie, having already suffered under reading Ulysses, thank you very much.  Just because something causes the society to buzz doesn't mean that it's actually a good read.

#DeepThroe
#CanrivalKnowledge
#ColorMeShallow
#ValleyoftheDogs
#definitelynotgoingthruthatshitagain 

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Had an interesting exchange with someone who shall remain nameless but will doubtless recognize himself in this missive should he wander over to this entry.  It was on a topic that began some time ago regarding a poll that the Enid Eagle was running, showing Vanhooser up 60%.  At the time, I observed that the Eagle also cited a poll which showed the Enid Parks Master Plan quite popular, too, and mentioned that the issue was the Eagle's credibility, which I didn't think amounted to much, and was on the same credibility level as its Readers' Choice contest. The fellow in question soon thereafter went out and endorsed Vanhooser, and the recent conversation involved just how badly Vanhooser got his ass handed to him, in which said fellow pooh-poohed the credibility of the Eagle's "online poll".

I'm quite pleased that this gent has finally come 'round to my way of thinking, but where does that leave our intrepid Enid Eagle, exactly?  Will such a credibility issue be reason enough for that rag to discontinue "online polls"?  I mean, it's not like it was EVER famous for being accurate; inaccuracy has been one of its time-honored traditions and this particular inaccuracy is one to be bragged about for decades to come.

The one thing he and the Eagle had in common was that neither entity wanted to admit that I had anything to do with Vanhooser's precipitous drop. and so I find myself now championing the accuracy of the Eagle's poll as a bragging point.  Are they going to now tell me I shouldn't, because they admit that the poll was bogus, functioning as the paper's subterranean means of contributing to Vanhooser's campaign in hopes of exerting influence on the future vote?  Ah! Good question! If that was the intention, if proven, then the Eagle exercised a Keystone Kop effect, and we should blame the Eagle entirely for Vanhooser's nosedive, huh.  Not buying that one, sorry.

No matter how you try to slice this pizza, it's still a chuckle pizza.

Ward 6 is Vanhooser's ward, and out of the 6 precincts in that ward, Vanhooser won just one precinct, by just one vote. He also won one precinct in Ward 4, in which there are a total of 4 precincts.  When I heard that Vanhooser lost big, I made the presumption that he at least won all the precincts in his own ward. Surprise, surprise, surprise! 

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Sunday mini-UPDATE: Gotta field another comment about the election, and to that person I'll say that it all depends on how you look at things.  

• Vanhooser got a drubbing after leading the Eagle poll at 60%, and that's a fact. 
• There are over 3,000 registered voters in Ward 5, and that's a fact. 
• Only 800 of those 3,000 turned out to vote, and that's a fact, a fact which indicates that 600 voters were, in the main, components of the Wilson machine, rather than this being a case of Ward 5's voters being thrilled with her poor performance.
• 200 of those voters voted for me, and that's a fact, and for a first time rookie, not bad, given that this was roughly 1/3 of the turnout. In terms of campaign cost per vote, it's actually outstanding.

What's also a fact is that one wardsman cannot even squat without 5 other wardsmen on board with the one wardsman, so--
It appears to be a fact that, given my supporters in the other wards, evidenced by Vanhooser's massive nosedive, I have Ward 5 surrounded.  Wilson now faces a stiff headwind if she wants to accomplish more ferris wheel nonsense projects.

Too luscious to not share--plus math update

Oooooops--I plumb fergot to mention that I took down big-spending  leading-in-the-polls-at-60-percent Vanhooser for a lousy $180-ish bucks.  $100 of that was the registration fee. 60 some-odd was for the PDQ printing order and the rest was 300-for-a-buck index cards marked with Sharpie markers.

Total handbills (cards plus door-hangers) distributed: a little over 1,000 and there are over 3,000 registered voters in Ward 5, so distribution total rather closely matched the votes I got--damn amazing level of productivity, that. If/when I run again, that same strategy will be the method of choice, as I'm certain that if I had distributed twice that many, I would have gotten 2/3 of the vote. Vanhooser blew a wad on buttons, signs, newspaper stickers, radio spots and robo-calls, and yet didn't get anywhere close to that nearly 1:1 ratio of productivity that I got.

Okay, so a lot of strategic legwork went into that, too, and for that, I thank my volunteers profusely. Yes, I lost for a reason...but so did Vanhooser, and he lost a whole truckload lot bigger than I did, ha.

Oh, the irony-------the irony!  The bonus was how little was spent and yet produced almost one third of the Ward 5 vote. By all means, call this the new low in politics!

And now my supporters understand why I wasn't asking them for money. But this I ask again: Tammy who? Who's Tammy?

#LoserVanhooser

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I had to chuckle when someone pointed out that a 1:1 ratio of production would be 1000 flyers = 1000 votes, and what I got was 1000 flyers = 200-ish votes.  Well, that statement would be true if all 3000-ish registered voters in Ward 5 turned out, and they didn't.  Most of Ward 5 didn't turn out to actually vote for Wilson or for me, so that's what tosses this argument into a cocked hat.  It's also a fact that makes the Eagle's claim that Wilson's win was impressive completely bogus.  What happened was a typical turnout, and that's why I was saying all along that I would have been successful if I could have raised the turnout numbers, and that the public opinion that the City wouldn't change no matter who is elected was deeply ingrained over decades of neglect.

It is also the case that Vanhooser's massive throw-lots-of-money-at-it didn't drive turnout, and this is something I knew at the outset: yard signs, buttons, mailers, robo-calls, ad buys on radio and newspaper do not drive turnout and so I was not about to raise money for any of that--it would have been a waste, and that's a lesson Vanhooser is just now learning.

What we're actually looking at is a percentage of the percentage that turned out, so we need to get beyond basic 7th grade math to correctly analyze what happened.  What happened was numbers that told me what the size of the Wilson machine is, and her yard signs informed me exactly who belonged to that machine, particularly the commercial membership, therefore it informed me (albeit too late for this election) where and how best to turn that around (targeting), but for the future. 

What happened was numbers that confirmed my evaluation of the futility of blowing money on yard signs, buttons, and all the typical nonsense that political campaigns blow money on. What the numbers told me was that driving voter turnout involves ground work during a time period that exceeds the months between filing for office and the election, so the serious work toward a serious run for office doesn't end now--it begins now.

And it begins with a fresh record of taking down Vanhooser, compared to which, Wilson's just chump sofa cushion coin.  Betting on a rookie politician to make a big difference is a bet with bad odds, but now I have a record: this rookie can and does make a huge difference.

What I have now is 4 years to cultivate my voter base into a movement.

Ohhh, it's a pool pool world!

Took most of the day offline for a much needed respite from the rigors of local politics. Came back late at night just to check blog stats and found a new comment on the previous post that was nice to see, from an old PEGASYS alum.  Managed a snappy response and so took a screenshot of that to post up here, in case there's any lingering doubt as to how delighted I am with the outcome, although it would have been nicer to kill both those birds with a single stone.  Out of the two, I did nail the pricier one. And so I continue being insufferably smug for the rest of the day.

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Thursday mini-UPDATE: wonderful editorial in the Enid News-ain't-got-nothin'-to-do-with-it & Eagle this morning--they gave me a big promotion.  I was so impressed that I sent the following Valentine to Dale Dewitted just a few ago:

Gee, since when was an incumbent cake-walk an impressive win, hm?  Thanks for promoting me from a nobody to a formidable opponent.

Luvz ya! 

 LOLz!

And I found this on the blog this morning, to which I responded:

 Ain't it grand how even the Eagle is in favor of depleting downtown business and moving that to Meadowlake?  The Eagle is also overlooking the presence of the OK Attorney General in our City government, and he ain't done with it yet.  Ya, "forward thinking" Wilson is now just a sitting duck (her loss would have meant that the legal issue was history; as long as she retains her seat, the state level legal issues remain active and I'm not talking about the simple matter of having to re-vote over 100 appointments), and all's well with the universe.  I wonder who the City is going to appoint to fill seats for Ward 1 and Ward 5.  I also wonder who the Eagle is gonna replace Dale with when the home office in Montgomery gets wind of a libel action. Had I won the election, I couldn't claim actual damages (setting an amount for actual damages might be difficult to set, but punitive damages are indisputable). For the time being, it's clear that the Enid Eagle endorses state-law-violating corruption.

It's looking like I'll be able to nail 3 birds with one stone. Or four.  What's clear is that if I had succeeded in pocketing that ole cueball, I would have scratched; things are working out a whole lot better this way.

"Well you don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't spit into the wind; you don't pull the mask off the ole Lone Ranger...even if you DO got a two piece custom made pool cue..."
--Jim Croc
Possessing a solid command of english never hurt, either.

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To Sir Skeptic out there, who said I couldn't do it.  Sir Skeptic, that's what the IBEW and the Illinois Power Company told me when I insisted on back pay.  I got the back pay.

Post-election non-post-mortem

Yup, it's not the end--it's the beginning, summarized by the Eagle-solicited reaction statement just now sent to self-desccribed reporter, Dale:

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For someone who never ran before and who got into the race too late to build a political machine of a size competitive with Team Wilson, the resulting vote isn't surprising, but at least during the campaign, I discovered the root of why even Team Wilson couldn't drive voter turnout, nor, for that matter, did all the big ad buys and political trinkets bought by Team Vanhooser.

When I address my supporters, that will be the key thing I mention as well as urging them to work to turn that around for elections to come.  Voters are thoroughly convinced that no matter who is elected, the City fails to change in a better direction, and turning around that long ingrained fatalism takes more than a few weeks to accomplish.

Voter turnout is key, and it's clear that even newspaper endorsements fail in that area. There's a bright side to the result, though: as I said at the launch of my campaign, I decided to run, even at essentially the last minute, because I realized that I did have a voter base, and it was Vanhooser that gave me that base, and that the base was city-wide.  Judging from the Vanhooser result, it's safe to say that if the entirety of my voter base had lived within Ward 5, I would have won.

My campaign had two goals: defeat Vanhooser, and improve Ward 5 from the neglect it suffered under Wilson. Achieving one out of two goals ain't bad.

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#LoserVanhooser

What follows is a statement submitted to the pro-Wilson pro-Vahnooser Route 60 Sentinel:

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I'm not surprised at the election results, actually, because of the turn-out figures. Talking to the people in Ward 5 gave me the impression that there's a strong belief out there that no matter who is elected, the streets will always get neglected. That's a tough conviction to overcome, especially after decades of this pattern.  Part of what figured is the turn-out of the well established Wilson machine, reminiscent of the old Mayor Daly phenomenon in Chicago. Put that up against a newbie with no machinery and it's not Goliath v. David, it's Goliath v. infant David with a deep-rooted voter despair complex.  Still, for my first time at this, it's not bad considering what was put into it, dollar for dollar.  I was able to cover about 1/3 of Ward 5 with the campaign, and got slightly less than 1/3 of the vote with that expenditure.  Not a bad return on expenses totaling considerably less than $300.

Past election records show that spending on campaign trinkets doesn't drive turnout--all the money spent by the incumbent didn't drive turnout either.  Nor did Vanhooser's big radio, newspaper, and trinket buys. The voters weren't crazy about those guys, clearly, but their respective support machines were, and that's something I just don't have.  That's the kind of thing I moved out of Illinois over.

Turnout was key, and if I couldn't convince people that I could succeed in breaking the usual expected inner city neglect Ward 5 had become accustomed to, no amount of campaign spending could change that mindset either.  It's become that deeply ingrained.

There's another aspect to my campaign that is much better news, though, which leaves me happy about things all the same.  That aspect is something I mentioned in the debate: I was running because I had a voter base that Vanhooser gave me.  However, that's a city-wide base that would have put me in the victory column if they had all resided in Ward 5, but I took that into consideration when I campaigned equally for Shewey as I campaigned for myself.  Somebody somewhere cited early polls showing Vanhooser leading Shewey by 60%, but if the polling company was the same one that showed a wide margin of support for that grand city parks master plan that failed the vote miserably, well, you can see the huge credibility gap in that one. 

And you can see the bright side of my campaign, too--the voter base that Vanhooser gave me didn't work within the confines of Ward 5, but it paid off for the mayor.  I'm not out the cash that Vanhooser is out, having applied strategy in the spending of limited resources, but all that big spending Vanhooser did failed to drive turnout as well.  What I spent per vote that I got was pretty good; Vanhooser, not so much.

It's all good, I've got new friends, and from what I hear, I've made a difference in how the City does business.  It's all good

Clara the Bird Killer

It's election day at last and I'm quite confident that my low-cost demographics strategy was a success even before the votes are in. The birds that were killed were the two-with-one-stone type (not quail, ducks or geese--sorry, NRA members--but I had you in mind when I proposed the Koch Nitrogen lake idea; you gotta admit that the Kaw Lake Pipeline concept can't touch that).

Basic fact: Kaw Lake area NRA members don't get a vote in Enid.  Enid area NRA members *do*.

As I've said before, I wasn't stumping just for me--I was stumping for Shewey as well, and made a point of demographically targeting audiences ignored by the other two candidates.

Yeah.  I went there, and I'll bet I killed more than just two birds with a single stone.

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Mini-UPDATE: Went out to vote myself and  noticed a Vanhooser sign across the street from the polling place.  Didn't have a tape measure to see how close it was, but hey--we all know how some folks don't care what the laws are, back in the day when PEGASYS' plug got pulled. The voting machine indicated well over 300 votes had been cast, but the day was still young.

All in all, whether I win or lose, I made a difference: the City is now running study sessions on camera, the paper finally published an editorial on the badly neglected pothole problem, even though it did get things backward by proclaiming that people need to move in first, love the potholes we've got, and stay for the fixin'.  That one still hits my funnybone. The best news I heard was via Chautauqua scuttlebutt, so outside of mentioning that particular difference I made in those vague terms, I'll leave it at that.  (Oops--forgot to mention that this best news tied with the best good news I got at the "debate") Made new friends on the campaign trail, too, and I still think nothing beats actually talking to actual people out there.

It's been a great run.

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Ya, a neighbor informed me of the bad news, regarding the returns so far this evening.  Bad news for me, that is--not for Shewey, though, and that, quite frankly, was a large part of my objective.  It's the guy who pulled the plug on PEGASYS that's got the heartburn tonight--he spent a truckload more $$$ than I did, campaigning, and I still have my new friends.  I'm good, and still gloating. For Shewey. That part of the mission is accomplished.

Almost down to the wire, and I'm kicking back, letting the rest of the pack undergo panic attacks.  Oh, don't get me wrong--I've been cruising around in the Claramobile a good part of the day while there's daylight--but we're losing daylight as I type this and all's well as I take to online media for the remainder...on Twitter, it's hashtag #LoserVanhooser . Good enough to use on Google Plus, too, and elsewhere.

Oh yeah, I know that for me it should be all about Ward 5, but I wouldn't find it possible to run without the voter base that #LoserVanhooser handed to me on a silver platter. All the Ward 5 incumbent did was hand me the potholes, the loss of downtown business that downtown had become accustomed to on October 31 with a possum Mainstreet Enid dropping that ball 2 years in a row.

#LoserVanhooser is buying up big signs, radio and paper space as if he's running for President...except on KXOK-LP...claiming to be a fiscal conservative when the centerpiece of his record in office is proclaiming that government can run a broadcasting outfit better than the corporation he killed...and then hiked the operating expenses of Enid Public Schools with duplicate facilities as the staff of Enid Television Network proclaimed in an Enid Eagle front page headliner article that it was Christmas, with your tax dollars.  Conservative my ass. Nothing says big reckless spender than all those ad buys.

He's clearly not happy being a career surgeon--he likes being a career politician a whole lot better.  Ever wonder who's carrying that boy's freight back at Integris?  He clearly isn't.

What remains to be seen, tomorrow on election day, is just how big my base is within Ward 5; whether or not it's big enough to carry both me and Shewey to victory.  Here's a reminder that I haven't been campaigning just for myself.  My voter base is city wide, not confined to Ward 5...not to say that Shewey couldn't do that all by himself, he's that good.

[Mae West MODE ON] Helloooo there, big spender, wanna buy me a hot dog?

[/MODE]


Of course, the smart thing to do politically is to work the First Friday crowd...which means that I'll be there, too, but I won't be using hot dog lunches to buy votes.  Meet n Greets expect Enid citizens to turn out, while I believe in going to the people as I've been doing since campaign kick-off.

When learning how to take a calculated risk one must first learn to calculate.

But it's First Friday, so expect a li'l valentine from me under your windshield wiper.

Oh--while you're lunching at Vanhooser's expense, try asking him how many tourists the Kaw Pipeline will bring to Enid.

This Just In -- Route 60 Sentinel questionnaire. Plus the answers.

By all means make a point to read 'em on the Route 60 Sentinel because I understand that this questionnaire has been given to all the candidates.

1. What  economic  factors  do  you  see  as  being  the  main  players  in  Enid’s  future  growth?

There are a good number of them in play in Enid, like a traffic-friendly downtown area.  Another is the fact that a number of Oklahoma's major routes set Enid at their crossroads in essentially one location. Route 60 is an outstanding example; it's how I got to Enid from Phoenix AZ, and when my parents were on their final stretch of their life's journeys, it's how I got here from southern Illinois. 

This fact is also a growth asset In terms of getting Oklahoma commodities to market, with an almost straight shot to Tulsa and then to Port Catoosa.  Oklahoma has already been doing grain business with Cuba, and now that Cuba has opened up wider, Enid stands to gain a lot with that fact in mind, thus putting Enid on the international map.

Manufacturing like the Koch nitrogen plant might be primarily a fertilizer concern, but there's also a demand for nitrogen in other forms, like liquid nitrogen but that would be up to the firm to decide whether or not to diversify in that direction.  Koch Nitrogen could be key in expanding Enid's economic growth if it could be persuaded that a reliable local source of raw water is in its best interest because in the form of an industrial use lake, it could also be designed to be desirable to the professional bass fishermen who regularly hold
lucrative tournaments.  Enid has lakes, but not professional sports quality, and so a triple-purpose lake would attract sportsmen of all varieties and host our local favorite sport, quail hunting.  Not to mention a scenic camping facility. 

The Kaw Lake Pipeline leaves Kaw Lake to benefit Ponca City and is just
an added overhead cost burden to the City, subject to renewal by powers outside of City control, whereas a local lake is not subject to permit renewals by outside entities and brings added local resources. The one demographic that the City has been overlooking for far too long is our game (wildlife) sportsmen, local and regional.

2. How  do  you  feel  the  City  can  help  attract  and,  just  as  if  not  more  importantly,  keep  talented   young  professionals?      

The answer to that question is a tough one that media-obsessed Enid culture isn't going to like, and that is to change its priorities from liberal arts to manufacturing science, an area deliberately downplayed in error by Engage! at the last Enid Public Schools summit. Enid makes a big deal of all our oil and gas interests, but both those interests are dependent on skilled geologists, sophisticated mechanics, roboticists, and specialty welders, which liberal arts/media programs don't produce, thus making it necessary for oil and gas interests to seek staffing support elsewhere. Our cheers for our energy industries are naught more than empty lip service. Enid Public Schools shouldn't have been saddled with the expense of media production in the first place.

3. What  issue  first  made  you  think  about  running  for  office,  and  what  was  your  position  on  the   issue?      

There were two issues that first caused me to consider running for office: the City government's hostile take-over of the corporation called PEGASYS and its yanking of cable access to the colleges when it handed over the education channel exclusively to Enid Public Schools...and the only access the colleges had was Chautauqua. The platform about potholes was added as the result of a number of Letters to the Editor following those events. My position on all those issues haven't changed, and with EPS paying an attorney to file a lawsuit against the State because it thought it deserved more tax money than was collected solidified my position on ETN and the exodus of downtown business led by the Ward 5 incumbent, exacerbated by the failure of Mainstreet Enid to pick up the ball where the incumbent dropped it added other planks to my platform.

I remain firm on the principle that neither the City nor the school system has
any business going directly into the broadcasting business, directly competing with our commercial entities who would better employ the advertising resources now drained by EPS in the form of sports broadcast sponsorship. We
have a perfectly good local TV station, KXOK-LP, which hasn't run programming for months now, that would be a better facility for broadcasting local school sports but aren't afforded the sponsorship resources now demanded by EPS.

4. If  every  ingredient  were  available  to  you,  what  would  you  put  on  your  dream  sandwich?      

Oh dear, my dream sandwich would be a Dagwood. I'd permanently prohibit any City government entity from attempting any project which directly competes with our commercial entities and that would include prohibiting self promotion. It directly competes with the Chamber of Commerce who has done a fine job of promoting Enid without that "we're big government and we're here to help" attitude, favored particularly by Dr. Vanhooser who has stated that he wants people to talk to the Mayor about issues. When it came to PEGASYS, that was his principle: government can do a better job than a corporation.  That means that another thing I'd put on my dream sandwich is keeping Mayor Shewey. I'd have to write at greater length to mention all the other things I'd like on that sandwich.

5. What  would  you  say  is  your  leadership  style?    

Paying close attention to constituents and then making a compelling case, in contrast to, say, Dr. Vanhooser's exhibited style of looking like he's listening and then does what he wants to anyway (as what occurred during Public Discussion on the subject of killing PEGASYS. Many people showed up, and, to a man, all spoke out against the idea while not one person made the case in its favor.  The same can be said for the other Commissioners who voted in favor of killing PEGASYS, which include Ron Janzen and Tammy Wilson, with Ben Ezzel and Mayor Shewey voting against).  Further, if any constituent in any Ward outside Ward 5 get this kind of deaf ear treatment, they can talk to me and I myself will talk to the deaf Commissioner.

6. What  types  of  businesses  would  you  like  to  see  more  of  in  Enid?        

Manufacturing and retail.


7. Do  you  feel  that  the  current  minimum  wage  is  adequate,  and  would  you  be  in  favor  of  raising  the   City’s  minimum  wage?  
 
That simple question doesn't have a simple answer due to the exemptions enjoyed by the restaurant sector regardless of what the minimum wage might be. What needs the most reform is the wait staff exemption from minimum wage requirements because tips are expected to be part of that income.  When those people who are not even paid current minimum wage get mandatory minimum wage, then we can talk about other aspects of whether or not to raise minimum wage.

8. Which  historic  figure  would  you  want  to  meet  and  why?      

Leonardo DaVinci because he was one of the rare few who knew how arts and sciences dovetailed.

9. If  you  could  wave  a  magic  wand  and  make  one  change  in  Enid  during  the  last  5  years,  what   would  that  be  and  why?    
I would change the rules about matching funds projects while protecting the Streets and Alleys fund more aggressively, I wouldn't have bought that monster fire truck which broke the bridge on Randolph because it's also too big to navigate our inner city streets in a timely manner, and I certainly would have a different City Commission in place, because in retrospect, we got snookered into electing the big spenders we have who think that big government is the answer even for local sports teams.

10. While  the  Koch  Nitrogen  plant  expansion  is  great  news,  what  else  can  we  do  to  attract  NEW   industry  to  our  town?      

Partner with the Koch plant to create a professional quality hunting and fishing facility from which it gets its much needed water without burdening our potable water needs.

11. And  lastly,  the  Route  60  Sentinel  standard  question:    What’s  your  favorite  beer?

It depends on what I'm in the mood for, actually, and I'll do a Guinness Stout on St. Patrick's Day. The one I purchased most frequently isn't made anymore: Stroh's.

More Vanhooser Follies, this evening's Study Session

Right now I'm uploading the footage with commentary on YouTube, about the dirty details of what it takes to get water from Ponca City's Kaw Lake to Enid, which is subject to renewal and review and might take 7 years to go through approval hurdles just to initially get on line.  This is a surgeon who thinks he can grok civil engineering but faceplants in the lakebottom mud.  And that's just the engineering, permits and review part of the project, Phase One.

While I'm waiting for the vid to upload, I'm going to repost the comment that will get posted with the vid, as follows:

On full display--how much a surgeon knows about civil engineering.  As in, nada. Yet it's his main platform plank.  Go figure. He clearly didn't. Bottom line: Enid can't afford his big spender habits or ignorance, as Enid's inner city streets testify

The Ward 5 incumbent flatters herself when she tells people that it's all about just her.  It's as much about a Commission cartel voting to support Vanhooser's irresponsible schemes as it is about foolish expensive Ferris wheel fantasies.  As I've told supporters--Ron Janzen shouldn't be running unopposed, either.

It's a fact--Enid now has an inner city and Ward 5 is an inner city Ward, but it takes other Commissioners to agree to raid the kitty. We need to stop the looting--it's taxpayer pockets they're picking.

Mayor Shewey is correct when he says that growing the retail sector is the answer, and I would add to that, downtown retail, something that Mainstreet Enid has failed to promote under current leadership and it's something that the Ward 5 incumbent moved to Meadowlake Park that which had been a downtown tradition. Enid needs to get the broom out and clean Commission house. I can't imagine Integris paying a surgeon to spend his time in city hall. Some other surgeon must be carrying Vanhooser's freight because he doesn't seem to be carrying his own.

Bookies are now taking bets on who the Eagle is gonna endorse for Ward 5.  Easy win on that, at considerable odds--I'll bet that the Eagle is that predictable.

Here we go...it's finally posted...

Cart-Before-Horse Syndrome: why some think we're back'ards.

Yup, the city paper is in bed with the current City regime as it proclaims that people will be attracted to live in an Enid with years and years of infrastructure neglect just because it has new dog parks and a hiking trail:

Oh yeah, Roy Schneider--a city with a growing inner city problem is going to attract new residents. FAIL

In other news, just sent a communique to City Manager Jerald Gilbert to say that whether or not I'm elected, the Emerson School fire hydrant remains a public safety hazard and if I'm elected, that's going to be Priority One right out of the gate after swear-in.  So is the matter of the Kaw Lake pipeline being a bad idea because that's going to be strictly a City expense.  The better idea would be a lake built with the idea of attracting pro bass fishing tournaments to Enid, which is something Kaw Lake could never do.  And on second thought, we should also accommodate national noodling tournaments, as well as providing good building site for a quality marina.  What I wish I had thought of before sending out that dispatch was nearby quail habitat for the hunters.

Vanhooser is all in favor of expending City funds for something that won't pay Enid back, whereas a lake would be a partnership with the nitrogen plant that will pay for itself.  Seems to me that, after doubling taxpayer expense for supporting the City and the public school system going directly into the broadcasting business, Enid citizens have had quite enough of Vanhooser's bright ideas.

Heads up, Enid! Wordcraft Alert!

Hello, Eagle! Getting into time travel now, are ya? XD
You might want to do some "investigative reporting" on the fans I have at Chautauqua. From the questions I've asked, I'm sure some of them are convinced of the time travel bit.
Yes, I have fans at Chautauqua. More than once I've been asked if I'm paid to be part of the performances.  Once, I was called a plant.  Once.

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I'm just gonna say, for now, keep yer eyeballs peeled for the Letters to the Editor section of the paper.  And if the paper's circulation goes up as the result, somebody over there owes me.  Caution: sharp turn of phrase ahead!

To a certain somebody out there who refused to hear what I was wanting to say about audiences: if I win the election, you're gonna owe me a modicum of credit at the very least--mainly because I'm heavily relying on a demographic gambit, which is also keeping campaign costs 'way down. Somebody besides you knows a little something about that topic.

And speaking of campaign costs, it's all pretty clear who the big spender on political bling is: Mr. Pounces-On-Shiny-Objects Vanhooser.  I guess he took that turn of phrase during a study session seriously: "you can buy an election later".