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Hi, I’m Mayor Whaley and I want to tear down your city

With Nan Whaley leaving the safety of her incumbent seat on the Dayton City Commission to run for Mayor one has to wonder why? The plan for Nan to run for mayor and former mayor Rhine McLin to run for Nan’s empty seat was dashed when Rhine was named to the board of elections taking her out of the picture. This means there is room for a new comer to the city commission, first in years.

Why is Nan running? Apparently, the idea of the city being represented by someone who doesn’t play in Nan’s narrowly defined 2 party of the Dems and Thems, drives her nuts. Also, she’s convinced that she is some kind of brilliant leader, even fantasizing about her ability to run this city- thinking she should be the next City Manager despite her never having held any position of responsibility that was granted to her by her political affiliation. For Nan, the Democratic party (at least what passes for one in Montgomery county with its incestuous closed eco-system) is the elixir of life itself. In eight years, this woman/child has done nothing other than parrot the party line and kowtow to donors. Hence the massive energy behind the demolition program (her biggest donor last election was from a mysterious demolition contractor from Westerville).

The demolition program will forever not solve our problems, which is exactly what to expect from Nan as mayor. She doesn’t have the slightest idea on how to move our city forward. If it doesn’t involve taking care of who put her in her seat, she wouldn’t know how to cross the street on her own. Even her backing of bicycling in Dayton is naive and half hearted. Instead of pushing hing hard for a proper bike system, she has allowed the “yellow bike” joke to permanently taint the concept.

But, to be honest, the most telling example has to come for her vote on the IRG giveaway of the UPS facility at the airport. Leitzel was the only one to vote no- rightfully, All four others on the commission should have been recalled for this dud of a deal. Much has been covered on that issue on this site, look it up for yourself.

The only reason Nan is so comfortable in this run, is the backup plan. If she loses, in the primary, Dean Lovelace will resign and she’ll win a seat back in a special election. If she ends up in a race against AJ Wagner or Gary Leitzell- Dean waits until that’s done and again- she has a shot in a special election. All of these options are ludicrous, since Dean should resign in time to place his seat open for the primary in May- so as not to cost the taxpayers any extra. If he does pull the stunt of waiting and causing a special election, the taxpayers should sue him for the cost- it’s bad enough he’s getting paid for not doing his job.

Even if Lovelace did do the right thing and resign in time for his seat to be filled in the primary- this would cause interesting shifts. Lovelace only got elected on his fourth try because Mark Henry resigned and a seat became open in a special election that was held at the same time as a general election (it was my second race- after losing to Mike Turner in a 6 way primary as a naive 28 year old). Would other candidates pull out of the general race for the seats held by Nan and Joey Williams to run in the special? If we did things in a logical way, we wouldn’t even have separate races for Mayor or Commission- we’d have the top vote getter be mayor and the seat choices opted in by who comes in second and third and in this case fourth. Instead- we’d have 3 separate races for 4 seats and the first chance to really totally change the make up of the commission in modern times.

The stumbling block still remains the 500 “good” signatures required – along with all the other gotchas.  I started circulating petitions back in June for this race. I’m running to fill one of the seats- either Nan’s or Joey’s. The real question is how many other good candidates can we see? The other question is will any of them actually have a plan and be able to put it out for discussion?

Sadly- AJ Wagner’s site www.ajwagnerformayor.com [1] is just a donation page- with not a word of what he’d do. Leitzell’s campaign site [2] is still touting his candidacy from 3.5 years ago (although Gary does have other blogs [3] and stays active on Facebook) . Whaley’s site [4] is still exactly what she said 4 years ago as well. Joey Williams doesn’t even have a site (I had to rescue his URL for him before another reader of this site squatted it- DL you know I’m talking about you). It seems that I’m the only candidate- who believes in keeping a fully open line of communications with the community.

For the record- in the primary- I’m fully supporting Gary Leitzell out of the three announced so far and if I had to pick a number two choice it would be AJ Wagner- although he’s just as much a party pogue as Nan- no matter that the party isn’t backing him. When he resigned mid-term from his judgeship he should have been banned from running for other office. Do what you promise- or get out of politics people.

 

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David Lauri

If by “I had to rescue his URL for him before another reader of this site squatted it” you mean to imply that I almost snagged joeydwilliams.com, you’re wrong. I did see that he’d failed to renew his domain name (Jesus, will politicians ever learn?) and if I’d wanted to claim the domain name, I could have, but I didn’t — I just commented here on Esrati.com that it was up for dibs.I don’t even own notojoey.com any more, although you can read about that domain’s history on my site.deanlovelace.com I’m hanging on to for a while longer.

Dr. Funkenstein

Just an FYI David. Whaley’s husband is Sam Braun and surprise surprise he works directly for Democrat party shot caller Karl Keith. Braun is in charge of public information requests like salaries etc. You are never going to beat them David. You can be a rebel and keep exposing them but nothing is going to change, it is what it is.

Some Guy

I have cheered for Dayton’s rebirth, but at some point you have to admit: With the kind of corrupt, drunk, and our cosmopolitan as a jar of pickled bologna leadership up and down the ranks of parties lead me to this message: GIVE IT UP DAVID.

The average Daytonian has the mentality of the average citizen of Grundy, West Virginia. If Dayton were going to come back, or be lead by visionaries, it would have happened by now. The very people in charge of fixing things, are the reason things are broken. Unless you are in the club, you are not in the club.

My advice: find a warmer climate and/or a healthier economic climate. I’m looking for one.

Diane

“The average Daytonian has the mentality of the average citizen of Grundy, West Virginia.”

Truer words have never been spoken, although I think you do a disservice to the fine citizens of Grundy, WV.

David, while you’re looking for a place to relocate, remember to find one with great schools for your kids. They deserve better.

J Dziwulski

After learning about Dean Lovelaces’ political history I have a lot of respect for the guy even though his opposition to gay rights was a blind spot (though he evolved on that issue along with the rest of society).   I’d say Gary Leitzell is a bit more like Dean in that he came out of grassroots politics vs being political insiders the way Nan and AJ are, and he seems to be more “outside the box”, and more accessible to people outside the local “political class”.

I think Nans’ signature policy initiative was the demolition program…didn’t know about the bike advocacy.  So i guess we get bike lanes through a landscape of urban prairie?  (obligatory snarky comment)  .  They do need to go further with this cycling thing, as you note.  If small (compared to Dayton) Chattanooga can do a proper bikeshare program why cant we?  But Id settle for doing better cycling infrastructure beyond the limited stuff we’ve seen downtown.

As for the Demo program maybe they can have a Demolishing Dayton Day, the way they used to have a Downtown Dayton Day.   Tear down a bunch of things all at once, as sort of a controlled Devils Night.  Nan could wear a hardhat and push some sort of ceremonial plunger of fire a starting gun….