The Great Billboard Controversy

Or "How Charles and Danny wasted our time over nothing":

The famous "missing billboard" has reappeared across the street from it's original location. A tip from Brother John - look for Chris Stewart's billboard at the corner of Covington and West Jefferson; when you see it, quickly look to your left and you MAY see Harper's board before you pass it or rear end the vehicle in front of you due to your careless gawking!

I won't bore you with a rehash of the details, but rest assured that I have it on good authority that the two-hour presence of the Harper board on the same pole as the Stewart board represented a violation of Burkhart company policy. Said policy has been posted on several local blogs, so I won't cover it here in great detail. Simply stated, "competing entities will NOT be placed on the same sign post and facing the same direction". Nuff said.

Chris Stewart would have been well within his rights to object to the placement of his opponent's ad next to his own; however, he was NOT the instrument of change on this one. Burkhart merely followed their own corporate policy on such matters, and moved the ad placement to a nearby location. With less traffic. Okay, I AM gloating a little here. But considering the "throw Stewart into the volcano" response by some local blogs, can you honestly blame me??

At least *I* am willing to post the new old billboard for you here:

Mitch Harper Wins Support of Former Democratic Opponent

You can barely make out the green blocks on the signs in this photo due to the glare, but rest assured they are Mitch Harper for City Council signs. It's certainly not unusual to see these signs around the Aboite area but I found it quite interesting to find them at this particular location - the residence of Charles Langley.

Langley was the 4th district nominee for the Democratic Party before dropping out of the race. Yet he now obviously supports his former opponent...

A Candid Interview with Charles Langley

UPDATE: The original link to the interview was a Word doc and it should've been a PDF - that's been corrected. Also, I do not post the entire interview on the blog because on Blogger the whole post would show up in the window and it would just be too long. Sorry about the screw up...

Charles Langley was the Democratic Party nominee for the 4th District city council race. He recently decided to drop out of the race and I thought I would sit down with him and try to figure out why he made that decision. Charles is a good guy and he was in a tough race - I was disappointed in his decision but I respect it because everyone has priorities in life and Charles did what was best for him. I certainly don't hold any ill will towards the guy and I hope others feel the same way.

As usual I've provided a few choice quotes below but I think everyone will enjoy reading the entire interview which you can download here:

Pruitt: But how did you get into the local Democratic Party and how’d you get hooked up with Dr Tom?

Langley: We show up at Democratic Party headquarters and we’re expecting like this big thing where there’s five people per district going to duke it out over the district, who’s gonna represent who, should that person even run in the primary. And we get there and there’s seven guys in khaki shorts, some in tank tops, looking in a phonebook for people in certain districts. And here I am, I’ve got a speech in my hand prepared to tell all these people why I should run in the 4th district and they said ‘Well yea, you can run’. And Brent and I look at each other like “There’s something not right about this”.

Langley: If anything I can say that some of the most respectable people that I would admire, in the past couple months have not been so much the Democrats as much as the Republicans.

Langley: But then came the day when I actually met Mitch Harper. And he’s the nicest guy I have met in this entire process. He’s a tremendous guy, very intelligent, very cordial; I think a lot of Mitch Harper, I really do.

Pruitt: You said there were a lot of things you like about Kelty – have you made up your mind about who you’re going to vote for in the mayoral race?

Langley: To be honest with you I’m leaning in one direction but I’d really like to hear Tom Henry’s issues before I make a final decision. Because I’ve met Tom Henry, I think he’s a very respectable man, very intelligent, very amicable but I do want to make a few issues before I make a complete decision. So maybe I haven’t made up my mind.

I was somewhat surprised that a Democratic nominee for city council wouldn't come right out and say unequivocally that he's voting for Tom Henry. But I suppose that's why I like doing these interviews...