between dishes and floor cleaning

A few topics of note in my world:
1) Locust Avenue trees between Calhoun and Smith street- sadly the pink tags around the trees mean they are to go. I saw three gorgeous trees in full bloom on the ground. WHY? Sidewalk. I am giving the masterminds of this plan the benefit of the doubt and hoping the plan includes the addition of some new trees. The three trees are just the beginning at least that many more are set for destruction on this block with the addition of a sidewalk. The Hook had an article on the controversy surrounding this sidewalk. A good citizen rounded up the landowners and created a plan they could go along with and now that plan has been enacted. Frankly I am glad the mess is behind us, but too bad about the trees. Fingers crossed for new trees.

2) Al's campaign reads blogs! How exciting. Looks like I may be able to assist the campaign in the coming weeks, not only as a volunteer, but as a supporter at the caucus and hopefully the convention. Dont forget to attend your caucus on or about April 24th.

3) Rob Schilling surrogate came to the house today. She was nice as can be. I really like the idea of neighbors canvassing in support of their candidate. I found it fascinating. Schilling has an apparently unbelievable network of people supporting him. This volunteer alone said she had registered five people in our neighborhood to vote. She is clearly a force and I appreciate her good citizenship.

Since we got to talking (like neighbors do) I asked her "why Rob, what is so great that you are walking door to door for him?" ok I didnt ask like that, but you get the idea. She was very sweet and said (paraphrasing) 'he comes out when someone calls, on two separate occasions with two different people who contacted the City with problems, Rob was the only one who showed up to help get the problem fixed.'Another indication of loyalty to Rob is the idea of only voting for one person even though there are two openings so as not to dilute the votes for Schilling.

I know Dave and Julian's campaigns are working hard to get out the vote on May 2 for the City Council election. Rob's campaign really seems to be going above and beyond.

As Jeff Rossman pointed out during the school board issue last election cycle Perceptions matter. Perhaps no more true than in election politics.