24 Caveat Gold
Glad to see The Luminary jinx is still in full effect – whenever we report on a local sports team on the verge of winning of a championship, they usually get crushed their very next game. Sorry, Mizzou fans for our gold inflected cover last week. Golf fans take note – Jack Nicklaus aka “The Golden Bear” (featured on our front page) isn’t in the field for this year’s Masters.
When nobody runs for office, it makes my job as your local newspaperman a little harder insofar as endorsing candidates. This year, nobody offered to challenge the four incumbents on the ballot in Parkville – Gia McFarlane, Nan McManus, Marvin Ferguson and Deborah Butcher. Usually, I would say that the lack of participation was a bad thing, but not in this case – all of them are fine aldermen and they’re making my job very boring by returning our reporter’s calls (on the weeks we have them) and generally acting like adults.
One caveat – and there’s always a caveat, isn’t there? – is that Charlie “Raging” Poole is running a write-in campaign in Ward 1. I’m forced to write about this, but it brings me no joy. Mr. Poole was my first foil when I started this column some five years ago and it was my pleasure exposing his techniue and unique brand of representation, which can usually be summed up as “throw a tantrum, take your ball, go home.” Sometimes he comes back – before there was a newspaper in town, he resigned but mysteriously was back in his chair the very next meeting. Now he’s mad at Mrs. Butcher for something or other and he sent a press release out to the regional media announcing his write-in candidacy because he didn’t feel Mrs. Butcher responded well enough to his demands and she didn’t “communicate” well enough with him.
Because it’s all about you, Charlie Poole.
Anyway, on the off chance supporters of Mrs. Butcher are tempted to skip the vote on Tuesday, now you’re informed. Get out the vote.
One thing I can endorse is the current reworked smoking ordinance that Aldermen will be voting on that evening.
From the very beginning, this newspaper and this columnist in particular have favored a sensible, pragmatic ban of smoking in public places. I, in particular, have supported exemptions for private clubs and grandfathering existing bars and restaurants that currently allow smoking.
For whatever reason, some aldermen think that a grandfather clause sets the city up for a lawsuit – ostensibly from a restaurant that is planning on opening in Parkville. Because as we all know, one of the priorities a restaurant start-up has, right after “sign lease, buy equipment, hire employees” on the restaurateur’s list of things to do is “sue the city you’re moving to.”
Anyway, this ordinance won’t go into effect until April 2011 – giving current restaurants that allow smoking ample time to make it through this recession, make the decision to move to another town that allows smoking or just go out of business because of something they did all by themselves. It’s a good compromise and I predict it will be passed, but we shall see…
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