Also in my defense, folks, I just want to point out that it is Kevin Hoover who pays reporters to write up Dave’s news, and who has always given him unlimited space to publish his views. Then I pay a printer to reproduce this information.

I’m certain that the Eye has carried more of Dave’s verbiage over the years than any other periodical, probably more than the rest of ‘em combined. So when it comes time for criticism – me of his actions or him of mine – I don’t feel so bad about doing that, either.

But you do raise some valid points. The core values that Dave espouses are fairly unassailable, in my opinion. But it’s all in the execution. It is his willingness to veer off into extremes that has saddled him with a lot of baggage. Dave and Paul Pitino did appoint Kim Starr, Tad Robinson and Paul Billups to this body, and with their extreme rhetoric (Tad, as usual, calling people Nazis), hostility and uncooperative attitude they managed to waste hours and hours of time on procedural matters.

In part because of Dave telling them they were doing “great,” the task force came up with a bloated, completely useless document and the $39,000 grant was wasted. The document had to be re-done by a consultant at an additional cost of $5,000.

It’s not my intention to visit all of Dave’s previous misadventures on him, as it’s a new day, people grow and so on. But you do have the right to take into account a candidate’s record in considering him or her for office.

Dave Meserve did nothing for this town before (besides wanting to get himself into the papers). I doubt anything will happen if he is elected again.

By the way, he says all that homeless campground stuff was blow up by Kevin Hoover . But he forgets that city council meetings are broadcast, many of us saw it going on for months & months.A simple Google search will refresh the memory.

Criticism would be if one said, for example, that a candidate’s inattention to detail, or blithe willingness to promote sloppy punctuation, or spending an inordinate amount of energy reacting to mild satire raises questions about his or her sense of proportion and qualification for office, since all those things will come into play in the elected position.

Basicaiiy, when you spend a iot of time deaing with iaziiy and pooriy-composed text submissions, you can’t heip but notice when you see a campaign sign showing careiess disregard for basic punctuation. In my opinion though, the handmade Meserve signs make up in heart, originaiity, sustainabiiity and generai artistic vaiue for their iack of case consistency. I wouid hope that other candidates foiiow that exampie rather than order a bunch of the usuai ugiy piastic signs from Iiiinois or wherever.

By the way, Friday, Sept. 24 is the big day. http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

That is what you said. Is that not criticism?

2. I didn’t criticize it.

Just as an afterthought, it doesn’t make one a you-know-what to observe basic punctuation, letter case and so forth. We get quite enough poorly configured slop shoveled at us here at the paper and have to spend obscene amounts of time fixing it.