A View from the Sno-Cone Stand

Last week the nation celebrated its 230th Birthday, here in Lakewood as is customary we had the annual Parade.

I watched the parade from the Sno-Cone stand with Ryan Salo and his dad, Ron Salo as we were raising money for the Rockport-Lakewood Kiwanis and the Boy Scouts.

Protocol dictates that the Mayor marches in the Front end of the parade with his lovely wife.
Of course behind them must have been every city hall employee and department head except Tony Beno, who was hanging out by the P.A. tent with the frail looking Casey Coleman.

I was most astonished in seeing the Law Director and the Assistant Law Director Corrigans marching happily along. To me that just seemed wrong, but they are patronage jobs.

It was nice to see Stan Austin of the Lakewood Observer marching with the Mayor's troupe, he has openly admitted that he supports Mayor George on the Observation Deck.

The Lakewood Democrats were marching showing off the potential Democratic rival to Tom George's re-election bid. I would not be surprised to hear that Ed Fitzgerald has decided to run for Mayor. If he is doing that, how will he continue on his mission to kick Ryan Demro (Ward 2) off the Council. Funny thing - there doesn't appear to be anybody willing to run other than maybe Dan Brennan (Demro beat him to gain his seat). Maybe the Lakewood Democrats have someone else in the bullpen for the Ward 2 slot.
Fitzgerald has prided himself on not being a big spender on his campaigns, it is my contention that is not going to work for a Mayoral run. Based on my campaign expenditures it is going take about $25,000 to run a solid campaign from start to finish. It would be my guess that Mayor George has pretty close to that number in his campaign treasury.

Back to the parade, it was very interesting that most Republican candidates and organizations were either in the middle or back end of the parade.

Based on simmering in the city, Election 2007 will be very interesting.