In and Out

After a couple of weeks of offering "the peeples" to lead them to his vision for Burlington if asked nicely enough to do so, Greg Guma, faux journalist and all-around political crank, has given us his decision.

He'd gotten very little news buzz over his public political pondering of a potential political challenge to incumbent Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger. Fact is, most of the coverage came in the form of his own Facebook page and his blog. He'd said that he'd meet with "the peeples" on Tuesday, Dec.2 at what remained throughout his musings an undisclosed location. I would have gone for a look at his political fan dance just for the giggles but he never let "the peeples" know where the friggin' meeting was being held!

Accordingly, he found support to be insufficient for him to consider a run for office at this time. No doubt in his own mind he coulda been a contenda. With a position of opposition to virtually every development plan on the horizon and a call for an unrealistic back-to-the-past platform with no jobs plan or any appeal to present day Burlingtonians actual desires, Guma's bowing out seems to be the only realistic aspect to his candidacy.

I noted in his blog post that Guma seemed to rely most heavily on the counsel of Matt Cropp. That's a mistake that most Burlingtonians will get to breath a collective sigh of relief over. For those of you (and that's probably most of you) unfamiliar with Cropp, he's a political loser of the first order. Among, but certainly not all of Cropp's failures was his failed effort to gain a seat on the City Market board of directors; his failure to takeover a credit union's board; his failure to make a go of a provisional capital for his secessionist, so-called Second Vermont Republic in Hancock, VT in 2010; his failure to follow through on any of his promises made after his disastrous management of the 2010 secesher campaign of Connecticut native Dennis Steele's gubernatorial effort (99.24% of the voters gave their vote to someone other than Steele); and, perhaps most tragically, when Cropp was Thomas Naylor's secesher embed in the Burlington Occupy group, his group's advisory to the City of Burlington that they'd be assuming responsibility for the homeless in City Hall Park was followed within a day of their letter to the City by the suicide of one of the homeless (nice one there, Matt!).

Looks like everyone gets to dodge a bullet here. Imagine a Guma administration with a loser like Cropp in some position of importance. According to Guma, Cropp is now setting his sights on Burlington's neighborhoods. My advice to the residents of those neighborhoods - MOVE!!!

Buh-bye Greg.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.