2.15.03 – american civics lesson

well, after my tirade about the uselessness of grassroots campaigns, i suppose i ought to comment on the fact that boise’s mayor resigned yesterday under the pressure of a grassroots campaign. it seems he’s been spending the city’s money on boondoggles to new york city and accepting bribes from insurance companies, among other things. when the story broke about three weeks ago, a group of volunteers in bumble-bee-yellow t-shirts emblazoned with “repeal mayor coles” took to the streets and began collecting signatures. they managed to collect more than 30,000 signatures, which equals about a third of the registered voters in the city, and yesterday under the pressure of the repeal action, as well as impending legal action, the mayor stepped down. i didn’t feel strongly the enough about the issue to sign a petition, and besides, i didn’t really think it’d work. an interesting side effect of ousting (republican) mayor coles, however, is that boise’s new mayor (for the next two weeks anyway) is an african american democrat. so yay for grassroots campaigns.