Gordon-hater tells the ‘Leader’ that she’s from Burbank, but tells the rest of world she’s from Glendale

We’ve been seeing this a lot lately– anti-Gordon animal activists trying to gain street-cred by claiming or implying that they live in Burbank when they’re actually from somewhere else. We also saw it during that recent dog-ban controversy when they were busing in people to masquerade as locals.

Interesting thing tonight. The author of the most recent anti-Gordon “letter to the editor” is telling the Leader and its readers that her address is in Burbank.

Lindsay Reeves

Burbank

But a quick check shows that she tells other people she lives in Glendale.

Such as right here. And here. And here. And here. And here, twice, at the bottom.

Leader headlines an anti-Gordon letter as “news”

Here’s one we haven’t seen before. Across the top of the Leader’s webpage tonight is this scroll of news stories all in a row:

In the News: Gordon embarrassing  ESPN cutting staff  Home prices surge Tires slashed Colony theatre

 

So you look at it and say, “Wow, what did Dr. Gordon do?” Just like home prices are surging and tires are getting slashed, he must have done something pretty bad.

Each story then has a link. But when you excitedly click on the Gordon one to see what the hell he could have possible done that’s so newsworth-ily embarrassing, enough to warrant a story just like ESPN cutting staff, all it does it take you to another moronic anti-Gordon ‘Letter to the Editor.’

It ain’t an “In the News!” story at all.

So what gives? Why a totally misleading headline that tries to characterize a typically moronic anti-Gordon screed as “news”? It’s no such thing and it’s a rook.

No, actually, it’s more a kind of lie.

For those masochists out there– since of course you insist on it — here’s the letter itself. Let’s have some fun with it– apparently we’re not allowed to criticize women now.

Gordon’s behavior on dais is embarrassing

May 21, 2013 | 5:21 p.m.

Councilmember David Gordon’s behavior at last week’s council meeting was an embarrassment to Burbank. As a “civil” servant, he surely does not know how to engage in civil discourse — deciding instead to attack, belittle and threaten staff and anyone else who does not get on his Big Brother conspiracy bandwagon.

Gordon took the opportunity at the last council meeting to make public the private life of our city attorney when he questioned her publicly about personal matters that had already been discussed in closed session. He never misses an opportunity to put down women, that is crystal clear. His grandiosity and ego are out of check.

David Gordon is a bully. Even though he is sitting in the vice-mayor chair, I hope when the time comes for the next rotation that the remaining council members think long and hard before letting him be the face of Burbank. He does not deserve that seat. He spent hours of city time to discuss what in effect became no, or minimal, change to the city attorney’s contract while happily seeking to increase his own compensation.

Lindsay Reeves

Burbank

First of all, Gordon is not a civil servant. So the pun goes nowhere except maybe out the window (now that’s embarrassing). Quotation marks do not a joke make.

As to the rest, just fill in the blanks. Aside from the fact that the CA’s contract is a public document– and the particular issue they were talking about was placed by staff on the public agenda– this wacko-quacko attack is coming from the same crowd that we all saw go out of its way to refrain from commenting upon Dr. Gordon’s private life during the election campaign. Which they all got wrong, btw. Just like the “hours of city time” idiocy here.

And hey, how does this “Lindsay” even know what was discussed in the closed session? It’s supposed to be confidential.

Officer! Arrest that man, woman … er, whatever they are.

Ooops. When in Rome …

Don’t do what you think the Romans will do. You might end up surprised.

He’d never ask this question in California:

Even though Miss Wolfson wouldn’t let him in her auditorium

So how any Muir assemblies were we dragged to for this guy? We never saw him at BHS because Miss Wolfson wouldn’t let him in the door. She hated the guy and called him a phony.

Miss Johnson though said that he was a great example of a wonderful public speaker and wanted us all to emulate him. He’d get like 200 bucks for showing up, and then try to sell trips to the kids, so it sounded promising.

Us kids though were always a little suspicious of those 16mm movies he’d drag with him. Like, who the hell was running the camera?

Now this is weird:

Goddard, who documented many of his adventures on film and in two books, “The Survivor: 24 Spine-Chilling Adventures on the Edge of Death” and “Kayaks Down the Nile,” said he did all that — and more. Each goal was meticulously ticked off as he reached it, from “watch a cremation ceremony in Bali” (No. 91) to “milk a poisonous snake” (No. 117).

Those not attained included climbing Mt. Everest (No. 21) and landing on the moon (No. 125). Jeffery Goddard said his father had reached all but a few, but could not be exact.

Hold on. His whole life and career was about this big list that he’d check off, and you can’t find a copy of it anywhere?

A popular speaker for many years at schools, colleges and motivational events throughout Southern California, Goddard supported himself and his travels through his lectures, his family said. He was a member of the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles and several similar organizations.

Uh-huh. Enough for a big house in Glendale, obviously. We should have listened to Miss Johnson more.

This of course is a lie

Keep in mind here that the original ‘Got Wheels’ program was amazingly successful. It was the only decent bus route we had in town too, and so naturally it was the first to go:

The days appear numbered for Got Wheels!, Burbank’s summer bus system for youth, after city officials this week proposed cutting the program.

While roughly 2,000 kids are registered to use Got Wheels! — the summer bus line for 10- to 18-year-olds that circulates to schools, skate parks, libraries, malls and community centers — officials logged just 475 trips over a two-month period last summer.

The bus program costs roughly $61,000 to operate each year.

“It’s never been terribly efficient,” said Community Development Director Joy Forbes. “Probably a lot of parents are unsure if public transit is the appropriate system for their preteen child, and I think Burbank is kind of walkable, too.”

Yes, we always see Ms. Forbes out walking the town. Why, just last week we saw her hiking across Burbank Blvd on her way to The Stack. In fact, she’s been out walking so much lately that we’re starting to confuse her with Coleridge and Wordsworth.

This is complete and total bullshit. Got Wheels was an extremely well-used bus route in the afternoons whenever it ran, and there was a friggin’ riot when they cut it. So much for Burbank’s love for long distances. Those people in the Chambers complaining weren’t there because of their love for walking.

Btw– the City of Burbank would never allow the adults to use this very useful Got Wheels bus line  … and then claimed that one of the reasons why it should be cut was because — you guessed it — only the kids were using it.

And, oh dear!

The program had at one time run year-round until officials in 2011 noticed the bus being used by students to get to and from school, Forbes said, adding that Proposition A money — which is generated through a half-cent sales tax and used to fund Got Wheels! — is not allowed to fund school transportation.

Only in Burbank would using the bus to get home from school be considered culpable. Often long distances, too, from the jr. highs, or for the cross-town permit kids- of which there are more than a few.

Often kids would go to the attractions via Got Wheels and then use the same bus to go home when it started to get dark. But who’s quibbling. Those bad kids, bad kids!

Say, how much again have we spent on the whole BPD mess? How many millions in legal fees?

You bad kids you!

Soon the hypocrites will be able to pray to Jesus again at our council meetings

If you thought that this was already settled law (thanks partly to the City of Burbank), then think again. It’s a new Supreme Court these days, and the religious fundamentalists are just itching to force the rest of us to worship to Jesus H. Christ whenever they can.

And they’ll get away with it this time too, regardless of the fact that to hold these kind of clearly sectarian prayers under the jurisdiction of a public agency is the same thing as giving them an official imprimatur:

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear a case on whether or not prayer may be offered at government meetings. The justices agreed to determine if an upstate New York town council violated the Constitution’s Establishment Clause by beginning meetings with prayers invoking “Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “Your Son” and “the Holy Spirit.”

As reported by USA Today:

The religious expression case, which comes to the court from the town of Greece, N.Y., focuses on the first 10 words of the First Amendment, ratified in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

That Establishment Clause was violated, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year, when the Greece Town Board repeatedly used Christian clergy to conduct prayers at the start of its public meetings. The decision created a rift with other appeals courts that have upheld prayer at public meetings, prompting the justices to step in.

Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian non-profit group, appealed the case to the Supreme Court. It is supported in separate briefs by 49 mostly Republican members of Congress and 18 state attorneys general.

Of course. Who else? They’ve been working on this for years in the different courts. Rust never sleeps, nor do the forces of evil.

None of this has anything to do with defending religion, or free expression either, regardless of how these zealots try to frame the issue. Contrary to their dishonest claims, you can pray whenever you want to in our council chambers. You can even pray up at the dais during the formal oral communications period, so long as what you’re praying about is Burbank-related and the council can do something about it.

But what you cannot do — until the Supreme Court changes the law soon, which they will — is have a public body pray to Jesus or Allah or anyone else in particular.  And as part of their official ceremony, that is indeed what they are doing whenever they do it.

When Irv Rubin first sued Burbank over this horrible practice back in the late 1990s (we used to have local reverends who’d make the assembled  crowd pray to Jesus all the time during our many city council meetings), he won his case at every judicial level. The Supreme Court back then even refused to hear Burbank’s stupid appeal, that’s how obvious the issue was, and Burbank’s loss helped set the precedent of no sectarian prayers elsewhere.

But it’s a new day now, and this current Court will soon be changing things. That of course is why they were installed in the first place, and why they have agreed to take on this case now.

Hooray.

BTW … our local school board dropped these group prayers long ago. We don’t even think that Glendale does them any more at their city meetings, these religious invocations. So why do we still?

Oh, we’re so pious and conscientious around here, aren’t we. God bless us all. We’re on the side of the angels.