Jerid,

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:37:29 -0700

Jerid, Thanks for the invite. It was a pleasure and honor meeting the Mayor and members of City Council. I doubt that the republicans would have the courage or foresight to meet the bloggers. : ) Or if they did, I'm sure they would request a list of questions beforehand. Take care, Alvin Borromeo http://the270.com

Did talk radio content in Columbus get discussed?

paper ballots now — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:00:36 -0700

I think it's great that the City Dems took the time to meet bloggers. Thanks for the recap.

Frankly, I have found it curious that the FCDP and ODP seems so disinterested about the issue of talk radio ever since Cincy, Columbus and Akron lost their Prog Talk stations due to Clear Channel's political decision to drop it and see each stations' ratings drop.

Columbus now has 5 Con Talk stations. The GOP created their Noise Machine to throw around their mud of lies and hate and it sticks with way too many people.

1580 WVKO-AM was leased to a Latino group which also is leasing WVKO-FM. The Central Ohio press has been oddly silent about WVKO-AM's new all-Spanish language and Mexican music format. WVKO-AM used to be the Voice of C(K)olumbus Ohio (VKO). Now not so much. The Columbus market now has 3 Spanish language stations.

You would think that the Democratic power structure would have seen the light on this issue after that CNN and WTDA-FM moron Glenn Beck's unfair treatment of Mayor Coleman.

Coleman and Council Put On Their PJ's; Meet With Bloggers

Administrator — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:38:18 -0700

On Saturday I saddled up the Lumina and headed down to Columbus for a blogger Q&A session I'd set up with local area Columbus bloggers, Mayor Coleman and the rest of the Democratic slate for city council. The folks over at TryFresh internet business consulting were kind enough to host the whole thing in their trendy offices in the Short North. Anyways, a whole crew of Cbus bloggers showed up, and it was exciting to meet Walker from Columbus Underground, Paul from Columbus Retrometro, the270.com crew, some of the folks from Columbusing, and Bonobo from BlueBexley (and 2 others whom I didn't get their cards).

Anyways, the session with the mayor went incredibly well. Coleman was personable and never missed a beat to talk about all of the exciting development going on in the City of Columbus. In fact, at the blogger Q & A the mayor unveiled the fact that his office had changed the city's street car plan to include the Ohio State University as one of the stops in this ambitious intra-city transportation plan. In fact, it was such a big deal that it wowed both Paul and Walker. I think most panelists were particularly impressed that Coleman's streetcar proposal came from young people, and that he's adjusting the plan as time goes along for maximum efficiency.

The270.com got a brief take up yesterday (it sounds like they'll have more later), and I'm sure Bonobo at Blue Bexley will have something up soon. For me, as a non-Columbus resident, it was interesting to hear all of the Mayor's proposals to advance the city. However, as the lone state-wide blog there, I told him that the specific reason BSB has followed the mayoral race so closely is because of the stark contrasts and futures the two candidates offer Columbus voters. No where in the state of Ohio do I think there is such a dichotomy of both character and ideals in '07 than in this race. Playing off that theme, I inquired to Coleman what he thought of Bill Todd's Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit, and of Todd's proposal to take over the Columbus Public Schools City School Board.

The mayor had some choice words about Todd's action. Notably, Coleman firmly stated his belief that Todd's lawsuit was entirely political posturing, and that the implications of that suit could be both irresponsible and damaging for not only Columbus children, but children across the state of Ohio. Also, Coleman stated for the first time how he knew one of the kids from one of the original desegregation cases that Todd was so fond of using to describe his suit, and how Todd's suit entirely misses the point of those first civil rights cases. The mayor's words were strong, his story interesting, but more than anything it was good to see him so forceful with his opinion on this matter. Especially because of the potential impact it could have for all of us. Coleman went on to mention Todd's complete disregard for the continuing improvement in Columbus city schools (from academic emergency in 2000 to dramatic improvements on the statewide report card now), and how that's been about par for every policy issue Todd's campaign has put out. Juxtaposed against the firm data Coleman was able to spout off, Todd's whole campaign appeared pretty pathetic.

And afterwards Charletta Tavares, Mike Mentel, Herceal Craig, and Andrew Ginther sat down with the bloggers.

Unfortunately, because of recording difficulties the audio with the Mayor came out pretty poor. I'm still trying to salvage it - so it may appear online in the next day or so. However, the audio of council turned out terrific, and you can hear all of their discussions on the issues facing Columbus, why the Republicans lone point that they need political disparity on the board is moot, or their case for re-election. I'll have that audio up at the top of BSB in an hour two.

Also, Walker got a great video take of the whole experience up on his site. Check it out.

Buckeye State Blog - Coleman and Council Put On Their PJ's; Meet With Bloggers - Comments

Jerid,

Did talk radio content in Columbus get discussed?

Coleman and Council Put On Their PJ's; Meet With Bloggers