We’re 20 weeks in to this 20th birthday party. We’re also less than a month away from the official start to summer, but Memorial Day marks its unofficial beginning so let the playtime begin! This week, a, er, backwards glance at our 1999 kick-off to summer activities as well our first take on a political development that, depending on who you are and how you look at things, was either a retreat or advance for local politics. We refer, savvy readers will realize, to Rob Schilling’s 2002 City Council victory, handed to him by a splintered Democratic party. Schilling was a one-term wonder, it turned out, losing in 2006. His party, the GOP, didn’t bother fielding anyone at all in the subsequent Council election. And technically, they’re not doing it now (or yet), either, despite the fact that the latest candidate to announce is a confirmed Republican. Well, Bob Fenwick can call himself an “Independent,” but we’re here to call ’em as we see ’em. C-VILLE: Still free and still free-thinking, two decades later.
Paging through the archives
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“Like most political contests, this one began with promises of substantial debate. ‘This is about issues, not about party labels,’ Schilling declared more than once. But as the race wore on, it seemed that Schilling, as well as Caravati and Searls, were deliberately shying away from relevant and controversial issues, such as the Meadowcreek Parkway, and instead reverting to tired rhetoric like ‘common sense leadership’ (Schilling), ‘healing old wounds’ (Searls) or ‘let’s keep a good thing going’ (Caravati). (Only Independent Stratton Salidis, perhaps liberated by his oft-professed expectation to lose, stressed issues, himself arguing for new thinking on transportation and education.)”
—John Borgmeyer, May 14, 2002
Getting covered
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—June 8, 1999 |
