The Rooster's September Mailbag
What's the beef with the suburbs? Why should I apologize to Bill DeMora? And other burning questions, answered.
ICYMI: An emergency Tuesday dispatch about two Franklin County Commissioners taking a paid junket to Japan despite calling for budgetary “belt tightening” in the immediate future.
When asked who paid for the self-described “trade trip,” Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady incredulously claimed not to know.
As of this writing at 9:28 p.m. Tuesday night, the Franklin County Commission has yet to upload video of Tuesday’s General Session to its YouTube channel, though it did post an interview with an intern.
If you know anything else about our beautiful commissioners out-of-country travel junkets, please feel free to submit that information anonymously.
Thank you!
It’s that famous time of the month where The Rooster lets the inmates run the aslyum.
As always, some questions have been edited lightly due for clarity, grammar and/or syntax.
Questions from the readership are in bold font, while my answers are in standard text.
What do you know of the FDCP Central Committee? What does it do? Who’s on it?
The Central Committee is the lowest elected office in Ohio. You can join by winning an election, or more likely, being appointed to a vacant seat due to your friendliness with local power brokers.
The Central Committee appoints the all-powerful executive committee and plays a decisive role in the endorsement process. You can read more about how that functions in reality from this dispatch from July 23 about the party’s laughable endorsement of Tiara Ross in the City Council District 7 race.
You can view the complete list, provided as promised by Franklin County Democratic Party chairman Michael “Big Sexy” Sexton in June.
This list is how I learned that my precinct captain is an apparently non-political strawman who rents a house owned by a former aide to Councilman Emmanuel V. Remy.
And to be fair to Columbus, these antics also apply in Cleveland, Cincinnati and any other big city in America. Running for Central Committee is one of the easiest (and cheapest) ways to see how politics works in your city.
Where do you get your bike tuned up? Any particular bike shop in town you love?
I patronize two bike shops: Franklinton Cycle Works and Paradise Garage in the Short North.
You can’t go wrong with either, though Paradise Garage is usually quicker with turnaround due to higher pricing.
I’m probably too late, but I wondered why you criticized people for living in the suburbs. I like living in a suburb where I feel safe. I simply would not feel safe in Cleveland.
Generally speaking, my problem is that suburbs were created out of white flight and a desire for segregated schools. Their creation also cemented car culture in America.
Suburbs, in the present, still have largely segregated schools and spur expensive and inefficient city planning while trying to peddle the mythical belief of “city life with none of the drawbacks.”
Ultimately, suburbs are an inefficient outlay of resources and contribute to a lot of redundancy, waste and NIMBYism that are the hallmarks of state and local governments in Ohio.
As for “feeling safe,” that’s in the eye of the beholder. But I would say stop visualizing yourself as a victim of crime (which is at historic lows, nationwide) and go live your life.
What are your near and long-term goals for The Rooster?
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