Wednesday, May 13, 2009

You Suck Omaha!!

First, I am not a Hal Daub fan. I don't think I would hand the guy a glass of water if he were on fire. He is a smarmy, slimy, passive aggressive jerk. He has difficulty taking a joke, or any type of criticism.

Side story:
Hal Daub was mayor of Omaha, and had just arranged to buy two old helicopters for OPD to use. The problem was that he used his entire budget to buy the helicopters. He had nothing left over for operation. So the city of Omaha had two helicopters that sat in their hanger at the North Omaha airport for a year.
I was involved with a girl who was the stage manager for Shakespeare On The Green, a free Shakespeare festival held in Omaha's Elmwood Park every year. This girl and I were at the kick off party and who happened to show up when the T.V. cameras came on?? Hal Freaking Daub! What a surprise! Hal pressed the flesh and said hi to everyone. When it came my turn to shake the Mayor's hand, I asked him when the helicopters were going to get some gas. He was not amused.
Soon after that I was approached by a man in a suit who I immediately recognized as one of Hal's bodyguards.
He told me that the Mayor would like me to leave the party.
My girlfriend was not very pleased at having to leave the party, so, needless to say, I did not have a pleasant evening. I will forever hate Hal Daub for that.

Anyway Hal was up for Mayor against Jim Suttle, a man with very little experience in government (not that it matters) and absolutely NO ideas when it came to the problems that Omaha faces.

A recent debate went a lot like this:
As mayor what do you plan to do to combat the city's growing gang problem?
Daub: Expand the gang unit, and expand the city's after school and summer programs to involve young kids in positive activities.

Suttle: I would want to listen and make plans then.

As mayor what do you plan to do to bring in businesses?
Daub: When I was mayor, I opened up Omaha as a center of international business. This has been neglected in the past 8 years, and I plan to regrow interest in Omaha from my contacts in foreign and out of state companies.

Suttle: I would want to listen and make plans then.

You get the point. If you used the debates and interviews of Jim Suttle as a man interviewing for a job, I would not have let Suttle mow my lawn, let alone run one of the largest cities in the Mid-West. The choice was clear, even for a guy who would rather vote for Stalin as mayor than Hal Daub. Yet Omaha chose to go the other way.
So I say, you suck Omaha!! I don't know you anymore. You made my move from your limits that much easier.

1 comment:

Daniel said...

Holy crap weasels, Matt and I agree on something!

ps. You said 'smarmy'.