Category — RJ White

The new episode of Smart City™, a wonderful public radio program covering urbanism and city life, features a reading by Leonard Pierce of one of his pieces from The City Desk.

It is even referred to as a “special treat.” But of course it is. We all knew this.

So- listen on your local station or go and listen online and let them know if you like it.

Also on the program is Shawn Micallef, editor of Toronto’s excellent Spacing magazine which you really ought to check out.
- RJ White, Editor

A new episode of the Wasted Words podcast is now available.

It is hosted by your editor, RJ White, and the panel includes The City Desk contributors Shek Baker and Stephen Levinson.

Thank you.

Well, that was certainly something, wasn’t it? With 99% of precincts reporting this morning, here’s how it all shook out:

61.1% (419,339) - City Councilwoman Maribeth Cosgrove (R)
36.6% (250,805) - Mayor Joseph Wilders (D)
1.5% (10,211) - Lewis Armstrong (Lib)
.4% (3,025)- Leonard Pierce (Ind)
.38% (2,610) - Louis M. Armstrong (Green)

The polling had Cosgrove only a few points ahead of Wilders, so this landslide was a bit surprising. She is the city’s second female and its fourth African-American mayor.

Mayor-elect Cosgrove’s victory speech was very polite, forward-looking, etc., which is to say- kind of nice, but boring. Mayor Wilders’ concession speech, however- well, we’ll have a transcript up shortly.

As for the ballot measures- all, with the exception of the measure that would make “defrauding a restaurant a misdemeanor offense,” passed by at least a 2-to-1 margin. The city and its suburbs also swung for Obama by about 68%, overall.
- RJ White

That’s right, tomorrow’s election day and, in addition to the presidential race, there are also many local races and issues to be decided, in what is expected to be a day of record turnout. A few items which will appear on (most of) your local ballots follow:

Mayoral
Largely between incumbent Mayor Joseph Wilders (D) and longtime City Councilwoman Maribeth Cosgrove (R). Also running are Lewis Armstrong (Lib), Louis M. Armstrong (Green) and Leonard Pierce (Ind).

City Council
Races will be decided in Districts 1, 2, 5, 8 and 10, as well as in three of the seven at-large seats.

Municipal Court
Two of these slots are up for grabs. Choose at random or along party lines, as you always do.

Comptroller
Only one, of course. See “Municipal Court.”

Board of Education
Again, unless you know someone, close your eyes and point the little sharp sticky thing at two people.

Ordinances
:: A resolution to turn management/maintenance of 40% of the City’s parks over to a private company.

:: Approval of a $25.9 million bond toward “general infrastructure improvements.”

:: Measure that would make defrauding a restaurant a misdemeanor offense.

:: The allowing of liquor licenses in the currently dry district of Calvinton [Some background- third item].

:: Tougher enforcement of City noise ordinances, relying less on technical decibel meters, more on officers and neighbors being able to “earball it,” according to District 3 Councilman Oliver Wachtel. The premise being that if noise can be heard from someone complaintant’s property, then the offender is guilty. Fines would also be increased from $35 to $75.
- RJ White

November 6, 1914- Former City Council President and acting Mayor Walter Larchmont warily casts his ballot in the emergency election called after Mayor Jonathan T. Sanders succumbed to influenza in October. Former Deputy Mayor Sanders himself had taken over after Mayor Jonah Woolsey fell to the disease in September.

Larchmont needen’t have worried- he was easily elected for this and two more terms. He died in his sleep of natural causes in 1929, aged 77.
- RJ White
[original]

Did Sunday’s editorial cartoon by Journal-Clarion artist Jeff Norwood look familiar? Longtime readers may have noticed that it was identical to the cartoons printed in the paper on the week of Halloween in 2004 and 2000.

The cartoon features a trick-or-treater wearing a scary-looking hockey mask, standing on a porch holding a flashlight under his chin. He is attempting to frighten a nonplussed homeowner labeled with the word “VOTERS” on his backside. In the 3 times the cartoon has been used, only the name on the hockey mask and the word balloon over the trick-or-treater has been changed.

2008: Name on mask is “McCain.” Word balloon: “WooOOOoo…William Ayers…ACORN…Rev. Wright…Tax Increases on Small Businesses, my friends!”

2004: Name on mask is “W.” Word balloon: “WooOOOoo…Flip-flopper…Gay Marriages…Weak on Homeland Security!”

2000: Name on mask is “Bush II.” Word balloon: “WooOOOoo…Stem-cell research…A third term for Bill Clinton…Didn’t really invent the internet!”

The City Desk contacted Norwood for a comment on his work. We asked if readers would be justified in assuming that he had cut some corners out of laziness, or was guilty of perpetuating a hackneyed cliché.

“That assumption would be undermining the irony of my artistic vision,” said Norwood in a terse e-mail. “The real message is that every election season the voters are submitted to the same mud-slinging and same underhanded tactics. The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
- Ray Ingraham

—–

This weekend also featured several papers’ endorsements in national and local races. The breakdown:

:: Journal-Clarion: Presidental candidate Barack Obama (D), mayoral candidate (”with reservations”) Maribeth Cosgrove (R)

:: News: Presidential candidate Barack Obama (D), mayoral candidate (and imcumbent) Joseph Wilders (D)

:: The Evening Press: Presidential candidate John McCain (R), mayoral candidate (”with some reservations”) Maribeth Cosgrove (R)

:: The Broadsider: Presidential candidate Bob Barr (LP), mayoral candidate Leonard Pierce (Indep.)
- RJ White

:: Republican City Councilwoman Maribeth Cosgrove currently has a nine point lead over Democratic incumbent Joseph Wilders in polls released this morning in advance of the mayoral election.

:: City Treasurer Donald Munro reports that Mayor Wilders has spent $1,192 of his own funds on clothing during his current re-election campaign. An additional $29.95 in campaign clothing expenses was reported, purchased by an anonymous donor.

:: If you think showing up to a Halloween party this year as “Joe the Plumber” will show off your creativity and topicality, perhaps you’d better think twice. Local costume shop Alter Ego reports the ubiquitous everyman has been so popular as a costume, that they’ve been forced to back order “prop plungers, bald caps and prosthetic ass-cracks.”

:: This October 29 marks the 120th anniversary of Industry Island, an experimental community founded by the virulently anti-Catholic Rev.Callum Fry in 1888. The original community was disbanded in 1891, but the many parks and trails crafted by the Reverend’s community remains a popular destination for day-trippers.

:: City Marathon winners (men’s open division) by nationality since 2001: 3 Kenyans, 2 Mexicans, 1 Ethiopian, 1 Eritrean and 1 U.S citizen (Orlando, FL)

:: City Symphony guest conductors by nationality since 2001: 3 Germans, 2 Austrians, 1 Finn, 1 Russian and 1 Chinese

:: City Founder’s Day Parade Grand Marshals by nationality since 2001: 7 U.S. Citizens and 1 Canadian (William Shatner)

:: Number of pancakes served per attendee on average at each Autumn’s “Dia De Los Pancakes” celebration to benefit Sauncha County’s Volunteer Fire Department #76: Eleven

:: Average number of attendees per year since 1981: 12,150

:: Quantity of batter required to make 133,650 pancakes: 1,044 gallons

:: Number of rental trucks required to carry supplies to the Sauncha County Volunteer Firefighter Open Air Kitchen: 14

:: Number of chefs required to produce 1,044 gallons of pancake batter: 70

:: Additional amount of batter used for “Pancake Batter Belly Flop” contest: 30

:: Number of inflatable kiddie pools used for “Pancake Batter Belly Flop” contest: 3

:: Total cash value of the ‘grand prize’ for best “Pancake Batter Belly Flop”: Seventeen Dollars

:: Dia De Los Pancakes will be held on Saturday, November 1, from 7am to 7pm at the Sauncha County Volunteer Fire Department Community Center.
- David Andrews, Ray Ingraham, Jon Morris, RJ White

The groundbreaking this morning of the new South Wilton High School (Expected completion: August 2010) was a bit history-making in that it will be the first public school building built in the city in the last thirty years that will not have an elaborate swimming facility as part of the design. Why? Let’s go back a bit.

In 1975, Beatrice Nussbaum, she of the wealthy shipping and coal mining family, passed away at the age of 69, leaving most of the family fortune in a trust, the funds of which were largely earmarked for the construction of new schools and educational facilities in the city. Public school officials were overjoyed to have such largesse fall unexpectedly right into their laps- then they were made aware of the will’s full stipulations.

In 1915, Blake Nussbaum, scion of the family, was one of the 1,198 passengers and crew who drowned in the tragic sinking of the RMS Lusitania. He was 17 years old.

This left a huge mark on the psyche of his younger sister (and only sibling), Beatrice, who then developed a lifelong fear of the water and everything associated with it. She became convinced throughout her entire life that Blake could have survived the ship’s torpedoing, had he just been given sufficient swimming instruction. To this end, she wanted to make sure that such a thing could never happen again. The fund’s monies could only be used if a comprehensive swimming program was started and maintained the public school system. The school district, constantly strapped for cash, had no choice but to accept the terms.

So, since 1976, every elementary, middle and high school built in the city limits has been constructed with a substantial natatorium facility and every single student has been required to graduate with at least six semesters of swimming instruction. In some ways, this has been a good thing- the city does well in state swim meets and has sent many a student to university swim programs across the country- but this means that there are also tens of millions of dollars sitting in trust that could be used for other facilities and other programs that have nothing whatsoever to do with swimming.

Since the 1970s, the school district has had attorneys ceaselessly running up against the wall, trying to figure out some way to unfreeze the funds, to no avail- until last year, when they finally found a judge willing to rule in favor of their broad interpretation of the vaguest language in the will. The board administering the trust is appealing like crazy, but the district apparently feels confident enough in their position that they put the ceremonial shovels into the dirt this morning. The school’s focus will be on technology and science, with $28 million of the total $42 million budget coming from the Blake Nussbaum Educational Construction Fund.

For their required swimming classes, students at South Wilton High will use the natatorium at Challenger Elementary four blocks away, which features a 75 by 50-foot, 195,200-gallon lap pool.
- RJ White

June 1911- Legendary boxer Jack Johnson trains briefly at a facility set up in a corner of a former Methodist retreat camp, about ten miles east of the city.

96 years later, musician and former surfer Jack Johnson would play a concert at the QuadstatesEC Ampitheatre, part of an entertainment complex (including a small skiing hill and a golf course) located on the same property.
- RJ White

[Original]

Hey, here is a real, actual thing- I’ll be attending the Creative Cities Summit in Detroit, October 12-15.

Aside from being in beautiful downtown Detroit (which I haven’t seen in a few years), the program looks to be chock-full of awesome speakers and sessions about urbanism, planning and whatnot.

There’s one program on the final day that looks particularly interesting-

Community Storytelling

“Authenticity” is often cited as a key attribute for places. And this authenticity comes from being able to tap into the true narrative, the true stories of places. This session focuses on two distinct approaches to finding that narrative, one based in theater, the other based in technology – both with amazing results.

“True” stories about cities? Who needs those?

If you’re going to be around, want to meet up, email thecitydesk-at-gmail.com.
-RJ White