Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Oh yeah, there's a mayor election in Ontario

I wrote about Ontario's last election for mayor, so I guess it's time that I write about the upcoming election. But I'm going to do so in the context of Route 66, which isn't even in Ontario.

A couple of Sundays ago, I was there for the last day of Ontario's version of a Route 66 festival. (San Bernardino's version is coming up later.) Even on the last day of the event, there were still a lot of people there, and when you have a lot of people at a single location, the crowds attract something.

No, I'm not talking about flies or pickpockets.

I'm talking about politicians.

It makes sense, since politicians want to make contact with the people, and especially in a local election, personal contact will go a lot farther than expensive, brief television ads.

So as I was walking down Euclid Avenue, I spotted a booth on the sidewalk for Rudy Favila. I figured that I'd pick up some campaign literature, and the volunteer who handed me the campaign literature was - Rudy Favila.

I told him that I was considering Favila, but not Avila. In addition to general concerns about Avila's antics, Favila has a personal issue with Avila, since Avila endorsed Favila for mayor at one point, and then decided to run himself. (Avila is free with his endorsements; he endorsed Paul Leon for State Senate in 2013.)

Anyway, Favila with an F had a live voter in front of him, and he did not want to waste the opportunity, so he told me about his idea to solicit a number of brief proposal papers from potential business owners, select the best of those ideas, and temporarily waive the business registration fees while the business were just starting. Frankly, this reminded me of some of Favila's initiatives when he was on the Ontario City Council several years ago, when he just liked to get a couple of people together and get something done.

After listening to Favila's pitch, I walked on down the street and ran into the Paul Leon booth. Leon was not present, but he had been at the Route 66 festival previously. The Leon volunteer did not provide me with a speech - but did provide me with a bottle of water on that hot day. I don't THINK that counts as bribery...

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