Now, those of you who were counting on Tennessee Ticket’s Joe Lance to keep you informed about all the races were probably disappointed to learn that you’ll have to find another source for Joe’s special brand of local political coverage. But you also might have been thrilled to learn that he’s backing away from his blog because he’s making his own run for the mayor’s office.

Last night, Joe had his campaign kickoff, and I swung by and took a few photos while enjoying the crowd. The turnout was good, the people were engaged and lively, and Joe made a few remarks about his goals for government, prominently featuring the ideal of citizen participation. Hopefully he will be able to mount a vigorous campaign, and give Ron Littlefield a run for his money!

But can you imagine the news coverage if it was true?!? It would be huge. It’s not, however, something I concocted from thin air. The story is true, only John McCain is the guy who cheated on his first wife and then married his second wife before the divorce was final with the first wife, who he dumped because she was a cripple and not as rich as the trollop he would ride into the Senate. No kidding. But watch and see how nobody cares about the story, even though the news media would be lapsing into a collective case of apoplexy if Barack Obama had done something even half as bad. Damn liberal media! Oh, yeah — and then McCain lied about it all. Yet again, you gotta love those Republican family values.

It’s been a newsy weekend! I posted a couple of stories yesterday morning, but there’s more!

• Jesse Helms: Not everyone believes the man who brought us so much negativity, hate, and prejudice deserves the half-staff treatment. A few are even willing to take a stand. Others feel obligated to give him a hat tip.
• Gina Gray got fired from her job at Arlington Cemetery because the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know that in a war, soldiers die. Will the Army do the right thing?
• The Chattanooga Green Report calls for more buses and more recycling! Maybe instead of spending money on a stupid raccoon, we should spend it on actual incentives?
• Their design is great, but so is the heavy-handedness. More and more, it’s getting hard to like Apple Computer.
• Via Craig Hickman, an awesome tennis blogger I only just discovered, check out the ITF’s new book promoting the Beijing Olympics.
• Pam directs us to Women We Love!
• Barbara talks about Megachruches and Hamas
• Bush is still embarrassing us around the world. And then there’s sleaze and those pesky little war crimes. Only six more months (at best!).
• McCain: oh, where to begin?!? He’s had such a bad week (though you’d never know it from the American press coverage!). More campaign shakeups, and it turns out that his homophobic campaign chairman has sex with men (now there’s a surprise! Yet another self-hating gay Republican!). And he, along with a lot of Republicans, hates birth control — doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to improve access to it. This story won’t go away! Also, the fallout from the Gramm idiocy continues — the hypocrisy, lies, and questions about leadership and credibility. He’s been caught lying (or is it just memory problems?) about his experience as a POW (which, btw, he doesn’t want to talk about, unless he’s exploiting the experience to scare up some votes). And through it all, the poor thing is trying to learn how to open a web browser (which isn’t necessarily a dig at his age, but does bring into question his competence). So much for the press to ignore!

And finally, check out this cool experiment in physics and sound (the tray, which contains a mixture of corn starch and water, is sitting on a speaker while the music plays):

• Check out the weather forecast in Crawford, TX. According to John McCain’s chief spiritual advisor, John “America is Damned” Hagee, this clearly means that God hates the Bushes.
• Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was in Chattanooga yesterday to speak at the 68th conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Check out the comments he made regarding the use of lethal injections: [H]e suggested that the recently-euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Bells had probably experienced a more humane death than those who die on death row. “I had checked the procedure they used to kill the horse,” Justice Stevens said, expressing surprise to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that many believe is cruel to humans.
• Now that he’s staring down the barrel at his reelection prospects, Chattanooga’s Mayor Littlefield apparently is having second thoughts about the drastic cuts he’s made to the curbside recycling program.
• Jesus! vs Darwin!
• You gotta love those family values republicans. It seems as though every week, another one finds his way out from under his rock…
• Would you crash this poll?
• The columnists speak of the end of the primary season: Eugene Robinson and Paul Krugman on the divisions in the Democratic party
• Cindy Lou: show me the money!

I think this story has legs, so I’m sure there will be more. Developing…

Audit time for the mayor

Mayor Ron Littlefield and his chief of staff, Dan Johnson, persistently pursued six months of painstaking audit work in an unsuccessful attempt to find something wrong with RiverCity’s management of the Corker administration’s stunning 21st Century Waterfront initiative. The only thing worth noting out of that political exercise was that the city unwisely rejected RiverCity’s proposal to fix the flaking cladding on the Market Street foundation, which would have allowed The Passage to reopen this spring.

Too bad that audit time wasn’t spent on the sweetheart deal that Mayor Littlefield and Mr. Johnson handed the mayor’s former campaign manager, Dale Mabee, for a block of prime land for ritzy condos near the Walnut Street Bridge.

A valuable chunk of that block was never appraised or put out for public bid. Instead, it quietly ended up in the domain of Mr. Mabee and his development partners under a no-cost option to purchase through an interest-free loan of $735,992 from the city to Mr. Mabee.

Such no-cost financing terms for prime south-shore real estate likely would have attracted great interest — if not an upfront purchase offer — from other developers had the sale of the optioned land been properly put up for bid through the normal request-for-proposal (RFP) process. Why that customary process was circumvented is a question the City Council needs to explore, after it exercises its long-neglected authority to hire its own independent auditor.

The land at issue fronts Walnut Street on the higher east side of the block and constitutes more than a third of the block bounded by Walnut, Cherry, Second and Third streets. In addition, the city handed the Mabee group, also free of charge, a strip of land across the center of the block for an access easement, or an alley. That strip has an estimated value of $96,000. That’s another issue for the future City Council auditor to examine.

Mr. Mabee’s group, Urban Renaissance LLC, offered $195,000 more for a portion of the block than a rival bidder for the land last year. The partnership purchased the land under a proposal to build 22 high-end condos, ranging from $600,000 to $1.1 million in price, on the bid property facing Cherry Street and Third Street.

But the partnership’s bid, approved by the Chattanooga Downtown Redevelopment Board, made no reference to requiring financing from the CDRC for the purchase. Nor did the city’s RFP mention that it would make the top portion of the block — enough land for 12 more condos on two-thirds of the block’s length along Walnut Street from Second Street — available on option under an interest-free loan from the city to the purchaser.

In the closing, however, Mr. Mabee ended up with the city financing about 75 percent of its $1.07 million purchase of the entire block via that $735,992 cost-free loan, plus the $96,000 gift of the easement. The deed of trust contract does specify that Mr. Mabee must pay (a low) 2 percent annual interest on the loan if his construction schedule slips. His no-cost option to purchase extends four years, or longer, depending the time required to complete the last of the original 22 condo units. If he extends his option after 2010, the purchase price is just 5 percent higher than the original price, plus a 2 percent annual increase after 2010.

Mr. Littlefield’s desultory justification for the deal is that promissory notes, such as the cost-free loan to Mr. Mabee, are “not that unusual” by cities to effect development that is in the public interest. Mr. Johnson justified it on the grounds that any developer would want to know what would happen to the rest of the property on the block, as if that logic couldn’t be applied to all the adjacent blocks. The city hall view also makes light of the fact that RiverCity, the city’s own downtown development agency, had wanted to preserve some of that block for public parking for visitors to the Walnut Street Bridge, riverfront and museum district.

In any case, the rationale offered by the mayor and Mr. Johnson is unpersuasive. Sweetheart deals given to a former campaign manager have an odor when they are so unusually sweet, unadvertised to competitors, and go down so quietly. The city’s bid process, which Messrs. Littlefield and Johnson seek to enforce for others, requires procedures that they clearly did not follow in this case.

For the City Council, this makes the second accounting project — the mayor’s Farmers Market purchase two years ago is the first — that begs a thorough examination. The council shouldn’t waste any more time in posting its ad for an independent auditor.

Today’s Times Free Press features a well-researched expose of Worst Mayor Ever Ron Littlefield’s unbelievably corrupt back-room deal that gave his long-time buddy Dale Mabee the keys to City Hall, and apparently the city coffers as well. The highlights from the newspaper read like a subpeona[...]

Ugh. Could there possibly be a Worst Mayor Ever?!? So, are all you citizens listening? Have you called your city council members yet? Get busy, people…

For the record, hiring auditors to look into those who use the public’s funds is a good thing. But the city charter dictates that they report to the City Council, not the mayor. The City Council controls all the money, so why would you have the people who check the books report to the person whose books they are checking? So you can control what they look at and report, obviously. This reporting structure has been wrong for a while, it just took someone of Littlefield’s (lack of) character to misuse it.

It’s time for the City Council to look into all of this. It’s time for the City Council to bring the auditors under their purview. And it’s almost time for a serious candidate to step up and declare that this kind of thing is going to stop.

EPB officials said they hope to be offering cable TV service in Chattanooga by the end of the year.

And in other local news, does anyone else think our mayor is being an incredible killjoy when it comes to the Passage?

Mayor Ron Littlefield said a key feature of the $120 million 21st Century Waterfront that is now closed for repairs was never designed to be a play area.

He said The Passage was meant to be a “reverent and reflective place.”

It’s like he’s turning into that grumpy old neighbor who’s always growling, “Damn kids! Get off my lawn!” — a cranky old man who doesn’t like seeing the young kids having some fun.

If the Passage is an attraction — if kids and their parents enjoy playing in the water — we, of course, should figure out how to keep it a safe and accessible. I don’t think it’s any big secret that one of big points of the whole riverfront park is to draw visitors to the area. Why is the mayor even entertaining the idea that we might spoil their fun?

I’ve also got a backlog of news and links, since I took a day off, and it was a very newsy day! I’ll be adding to his list as the evening wears on, so reload the page for more — I’ll probably keep at it until around midnight. I’m not planning to live- blog the debate, but who knows!?! If things get really wacky, I might have to make a comment or two!

Chris Dodd, the first of the Democratic presidential contenders to endorse, has stepped into Obama’s camp. Will Richardson be next to pick a team? (Also, progressives note: Russ Feingold has endorsed Obama.)

People keep talking about how Barack Obama is at a higher risk for potential harm than other candidates/presidents might be, but I’m not worried. Our Secret Service has an awesome record. If they weren’t so good at what they do, I’m sure someone would have taken W out by now. If they can keep that unbelievably incompetent, reviled idiot safe, they can protect Barack Obama from a few stupid racists.

Is Peggy Noonan drunk? Or off her meds?

Who is Hillary running against? Which Hillary will show up tonight? The one who hates speeches and rallies? She criticizes Obama for a lack of foreign policy experience, but I’m pretty sure Barack has more foreign policy cred (as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) than Bill Clinton had when he was running for president in 1992. Besides, look where her supposed experience got her. And while we’re at it, which Clinton is running?

Oh, Mark Penn. You’re so ugly. But who are you really rooting for? Are you really in this primary race?

Dear John McCain… it’s the lobbyists, stupid! Oh, and that pesky law that you wrote! Hypocrisy does not become you (and btw, John, the surge didn’t work).

Dear Ron Paul supporters… you won’t get anywhere if you don’t vote!

The SCLM is at it again. Will they get away with it (Rachel’s on it!)? There’s a poll here. (And btw, why does CNN suck so much these days?)

One of Romney’s valiant warrior sons says that Mitt may flip flop himself back into the race! Maybe he needs to get rid of some more of that pesky money…

… and in non-presidential politics, Chattanooga still has the worst mayor ever! How’s this for a hamfisted and stupid attempt at humor?

Recycling isn’t increasing in the Scenic City. In fact, people have understandably confessed that the city has made it too hard, and they’re ready to heave all of their refuse into the trash — and who knows how many have already given in to the allure of the landfill? Pitch it all in those ginormous trash cans the city has distributed throughout our neighborhoods, and it will disappear forever! Like magic! No separating! No driving! No storing it for the rest of the month!

Further, this new monthly recycling program hasn’t saved the city any money, since more money was put into increasing the number of dropoff centers in the city. And, vacuously enough, $100,000 in taxpayer funds was spent on a (hamfisted) PR campaign, complete with a ridiculous recycling raccoon, meant to convince Chattanoogans that these changes are all a good thing.

Well, they’re not a good thing. When you look around at what progressive communities are doing around the country, Chattanooga’s efforts clearly are a step backwards, despite silly claims to the contrary:

He said over about a year’s time, those using the recycling dropoff center on Access Road went from 795 to 2,058 in a month and at the Patten Center in Lookout Valley went from 370 to over 2,000 per month.

Oy. Well, of course the use of dropoff centers has gone up! Because we no longer have curbside pickup! And by requiring each individual who has recyclables to drive to a dropoff center, you’re trading the environmental benefit of recycling with the increased pollution caused by so many individual vehicles putting extra miles on our roads.

And in the meantime, davidm, who did a series of posts about recycling that introduced me to Norcal (and which, sadly, have since been lost to server issues), contacted Josh when he did his research. Josh, who used to live in Chattanooga, now lives in the San Francisco area and gave david the following report:

“Here, they’ve removed every obstacle to recycling. Recycling day is always the same as garbage day so it’s easy to remember. Since you’re putting everything out at once, you’re more likely to recycle everything you can. No sorting. No special-colored bags.

Unfortunately, our mayor has taken the opposite approach, by making recycling efforts as frustrating as possible. And the mayor’s office is so enamored with that absurd raccoon (has anyone spotted that thing lately? Word has it the creature’s last appearance was on the mayor’s Christmas Card), that he’s going to throw away another $100,000 after wasting the same amount last year. It’s a great deal for Waterhouse Public Relations, but what does the taxpayer have to show for all that money, besides a rarely-spotted oversized raccoon? And why, if this money was supposedly spent last year to conceive of and develop this PR campaign, is the same amount necessary for this year, to merely continue on with more of the same?

I think perhaps we’re not getting our money’s worth.