Don Gerard: Vindicated

There's been a lot of speculation online about this whole kerfluffle between Mayor Don Gerard and Jim "Jammin" Bean, what caused it, who started the argument at Boneyard Creek Community Day a few weeks ago, etc. I can now say I have seen one of the social media postings involved and that, yes, Bean was talking smack about Mayor Gerard's underage daughter.

I also want to say that Mayor Gerard is under no obligation to make the details about this whole affair public. He's been taking some heat in the News-Gazette and elsewhere about it. If he is doing so because his daughter doesn't want to make a big deal about it or is just embarrassed by the attention, I commend him for putting her interests above his own defense.

Again, in this matter, I'm 110% behind Mayor Gerard.

Screenshots are forever, bitches.

Mayoral race speculation

This may be a bit incoherent, but it's late and I want to get this down.

First, there may be some shennanigans going on in the Champaign mayoral race. I forget who originally pointed this out, possibly on Twitter, but Smile Politely has an article up, "Local officials mum on alleged Schweighart campaign violation" about Schweighart campaign work possibly being done on City time and by City employees. Naughty.

I've never worked for the City, but at the later years when I was at the University, we had to go through rather silly, yet mandatory, annual ethics training that made it pretty darn clear that things like this were not appropriate. Is that true of state and city employees as well? Anyway you'd think anyone involved with a political office would be doubly sensitive to it. And then someone involved with a political office and a political campaign would be triply sensitive to it. But, then again, perhaps it's the abuse of the vast purchasing powers and powerful influence grad students and postdocs hold that is the real ethical threat.

Secondly, I've heard speculation that, if elected, Mayor Schweighart may not serve out his entire four-year term, but instead, retire and some other Republican would be appointed to finish his term. On one hand, I don't think it's fair to judge the mayor's suitability for election solely on his age. On the other hand, he is, shall we say, of a certain age and (I hear) has had some fairly serious health problems in the past. And any appointee going into an election as an incumbent would have a pretty significant advantage.

The mayoral debate is Wednesday. I mused about the idea of livetweeting the debate, then someone heard about that, and now I've learned that People Have Been Told I will be doing that, so now there's all this pressure. People, don't get your hopes up. Also, don't assume I have any idea what I'm doing.

Also, the first mayoral debate in how many decades is two days away, and still, no clue about the format, who's going to be asking questions, whether the questions will be coming from the audience, or what. But, hey, at least it's being put together by a legitimate organization, right?