The United States Conference of Mayors will take place from June 20th-24th in Miami, FL. The agenda (pdf) includes rising energy costs, housing, water, transportation, street crime, public schools, gangs, health care quality and costs, secure airports and ports, illegal guns, drugs, and immigration with a special focus on climate protection initiatives. Not to mention speakers Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton.
posted on Jun 18, 2008 - View this thread

It's Boris. London has elected Boris Johnson as its new mayor.
posted on May 2, 2008 - View this thread

Boston Mayor Tom Menino is running for president. Here's why he'd be a better president than Mitt Romney. And he's done vocals for a techno track.
posted on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

Mayor Ken Williams of Centerton, Arkansas, recently resigned over allegations of identity theft and other weirdness. He claims that a truth serum injection helped him to recognize that he was formerly The Rev. Don LaRose. He runs a website telling the "amazing story" (in 11 chapters) of his abduction by satan-worshippers three decades ago.
posted on Nov 26, 2007 - View this thread

He once stopped a school bus on a busy interstate because he “needed a hug” from the kids inside. He’s been known to strap weapons to his chest and leg that he has no authority to carry or conceal, then wear them in public. He once bulldozed an elderly woman’s house, promising to build her a better one. He then forgot to build it. He recruited a team of kids to torch a row of dilapidated shotgun houses, without clearance or first turning off the utilities. Meet The Worst Mayor In America.
posted on Oct 23, 2007 - View this thread

"Even the greatest cities have further greatness in them. I will stand for a greater London and for putting the smile back on London's face." Boris Johnson announces his candidacy for Mayor of London, though he is yet to be endorsed by the Conservative Party. Though decidedly right wing in his views (this clip, perhaps more than any other summarises his view on Europe, for example) his very English brand of buffoonery lends him unique appeal (though not universally).
posted on Jul 16, 2007 - View this thread

Public gatherings restricted? Check. Shutdown of independent businesses? Check. Lockdown on traffic and transportation in the area? You bet. Lawmakers in Baltimore trying to curb the city's homicide rate (already 108 this year) have come up with some "desperate measures" of questionable constitutional legality, including heightening police presence in order to lockdown streets in "emergency areas." It has been called, "partial martial law" by some, and one has to wonder if the city of Baltimore may not do better to take a page from The Wire's Hamsterdam for a solution to their inextricably linked drug and homicide issues.
posted on May 17, 2007 - View this thread

Unconventional Wisdom: Vote Local, Impact National? The City of Philadelphia often serves as a test-market for the introduction of goods and services, due to demographics that are sometimes representative of the country as a whole. Many of the usual tenets of political conventional wisdom have not held true in this election. A city still geographically divided by the artifacts of redlining did not have a campaign reflective of the population's breakdown by race (although the results map [PDF] implies a racial deliniation, with a largely-white Northeast Philadelphia preferring candidate Knox). The candidate with the largest war chest and most TV advertising did not win. Incumbents with various amounts of local name recognition (and even the support of a BIG NAME) could not garner a simple majority of the vote. Tremendous Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts by local labor and the party-machine proved fruitless. And save for some swiftboating and alleged dirty-tricks at the end, the campaign was fought cleanly. Given that, the recently completed Primary Election and Great Expectations for the Next Mayor of the City of Philadelphia may serve as an example of newly-evolving voter behavior, where a brainy policy-wonk is the people's choice versus the usual suspects.
posted on May 16, 2007 - View this thread

An assassin with alleged links to the underworld shot and killed the mayor of Nagasaki yesterday. Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito was a tireless anti-nuclear proliferation activist who travelled the world to spread his pacifist message and help serve witness to the horrors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His comments during bombing anniversaries have criticized the United States as well as North Korea and Iran for contributing to proliferation.
posted on Apr 18, 2007 - View this thread

King Mike for Monarch NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg stars in a political ad parody. From the Inner Circle, via YouTube.
posted on Mar 14, 2006 - View this thread

London's mayor suspended for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.
posted on Feb 24, 2006 - View this thread

Only in Tucson can the Mayor and his wife get rear-ended by a stagecoach. It all happened during the annual Rodeo parade in downtown Tucson. There is a fantastic made for TV video of it attached this story.
posted on Feb 24, 2006 - View this thread

On one side: Jim Green, the Alabama-born, opera-loving Vietnam draft-dodger, a hard-nosed community activist and the choice of the local tabloid and the outgoing mayor (himself the inspiration for not one but two Canadian television series) who together fought to bring harm-reduction (i.e. sanity) to Vancouver's drug-plagued downtown eastside; on the other: Sam Sullivan, the surprising underdog, a paraplegic -- and former lead singer in the "Spinal Chords" -- who, he's proud to say, was flat on his back and on welfare 20 years ago, then taught himself Cantonese and is the longest-serving member of city council. Who will be the next mayor of Vancouver? (It'll be close.)
posted on Nov 18, 2005 - View this thread

Teen Mayor!
Eighteen year old Michael Sessions can't buy or drink alcohol but he has been elected the mayor of his hometown of Hillsdale, Michigan. He won the office by two votes, which he's credited to his parents for putting him over the top.
His reason for running? Eight races in his town were being run unopposed and he didn't think that was right so he tried to run but was underage at the time. So he ran as a write-in. And won, pending a recount.
It will certainly be an interesting senior year of high school for him.
posted on Nov 11, 2005 - View this thread

They are feeding the public a line of bull, and they are spinning, and people are dying down here: A post with a link to MP3 of an explosive WWL radio interview in which New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has a message for politicians: "I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamned press conferences... put a moratorium on press conferences, don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city, and then come down to this city and stand with us... Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here - they're not here; it's too doggoned late. Now get off your asses and let's do something..."
posted on Sep 2, 2005 - View this thread

KXLY News 4 Mayor Jim West of Spokane Washington has been accused of sexual abuse of a male child. Mayor West announced in the local Spokesman Review newpaper that he plans on staying on as Mayor.
posted on May 7, 2005 - View this thread

Lesser of two goods? (SanFranciscoFilter) SFWeekly's John Mecklin sums up the wild ride in San Francisco's mayoral race, from Matt Gonzalez's late entry, to the baffling Guardian endorsement, to the obvious Chronicle Gavin Newsom endorsement, to the downright surreal Alioto endorsement debacle. Oh, and then there's the Chron's not so coincidental "Shame " series on homelessness, Newsom's defining issue, in the final days of the election. In all, Mecklin concludes we're pretty damn lucky to have the fortune in this day and age to choose between two candidates that both have the capacity to do a decent job. Is this relevant to non-San Franciscans? Well, if Matt wins (and the odds are even), that puts a Green at the helm of a fairly important US city and may help counter the effect of Arnie.
posted on Dec 4, 2003 - View this thread

San Francisco mayorial candidates take the Voight-Kampff test. You know, from Blade Runner. For the children.
posted on Sep 5, 2003 - View this thread

New York man gets ticket for sitting on a milk crate. Not, of course, that i take the NY Daily News all that seriously, but still... This is beyond ridiculous (much like a lot of things taking place in New York these days). Makes me ill that I have to wait until 2006 to vote this ridiculous mayor out of office.
posted on May 20, 2003 - View this thread

"I'm the commander in chief of this goddam place, and there is no way the command staff of my Police Department is going to step down at this time. It's a matter of public safety."

So responded San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to the indictments of ten SFPD members, which included Police Chief Earl Sanders. The convictions were passed after police officers assaulted two men who wouldn't hand over a bag of steak fajitas. Top brass deliberately delayed handing over records to the DA. Has Brown committed political suicide standing by an old friend? Are his words a realistic portrayal of municipal operations? And what does an indicted command staff still on the job say about justice being served?
posted on Mar 1, 2003 - View this thread

Buddy, we hardly knew ye. Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., mayor of Providence, R.I., heads off to jail on conspiracy charges, thus ending one of the most colorful relationships between a mayor and his city since Daley's Chicago. Whether revered for his astounding reconstruction of an embattled downtown, chastised for a career of shady dealings with shady people (and one unfortunate incident involving a fireplace, a lit cigarette, and his wife's lover), or turned into a cult figure by artsy college students, one thing is certain: Providence is a more interesting place because Buddy was a part of it.
posted on Sep 6, 2002 - View this thread

Koleen Brooks, in getting elected mayor of Georgetown, CO, was hardly the first to successfully transition from the stage to politics. But what makes her story unlike the high-profile successes of Ronald Reagan (and perhaps more akin to the that of Gov. Ventura both in notoriety and for their "independent" political affiliation) is that her stage had a metal pole and lots of nudity (NSFW). In a recent interview, Koleen Brooks discusses her political forays cut short for now by a recall election last month.

There is certainly nothing new about controversial celebrity characters being elected to office, especially local office, and as the mayor of Inglis, FL has demonstrated with her anti-Satan proclamation, it is easy to obtain national notoriety while remaining well within the bounds of "traditional conservative values". Nevertheless, might Brooks's successful candidacy be the beginning of a more significant trend within American politics as the sons and daughters of the Sexual Revolution bring their sexual dilettantism into the dominant elderly voting bloc?
posted on May 8, 2002 - View this thread

Remember that Florida Mayor who banned Satan from town? Well, after she got done talking to mass-media syncophants like Dan Rather, her utterly misguided publicist apparently let her talk to the keen and incisive sleuths from Satanosphere, who, as usual, got down to the really important stuff. Like:

matt: ...The one question everybody has for you is this: Are you planning on banning any other major deities or demons? Like Skeletor?

So, will Skeletor be banned forever from Inglis, Florida? Will the ACLU extend Skeletor the same legal protection as it graciously offered Satan? And perhaps most important of all, what about Wil Wheaton?
posted on Mar 21, 2002 - View this thread

Pssst. Hey buddy: wanna name a bridge? Nothing is sacred. Or public.
posted on Feb 5, 2002 - View this thread

Weatherman faces up to six months. Rio de Janeiro Mayor Cesar Maya has asked prosecutors to seek charges against Luiz Carlos Austin, claiming his weather forecast was irresponsible. The city's acting chief prosecutor, said he would likely charge Austin with sounding a false alarm, which is punishable by up to six months in prison. Was it really irresponsible to report that the storm could hit? And who listens to weathermen anyway? I say if you want to find out what the weathers going to be like, stick your head out the window. Major storm warnings are the only things I want to hear about.
posted on Jan 5, 2002 - View this thread

When I was 19, I concentrated on dating, parties, and occasionally my college courses...not being the mayor of a small town in Pennsylvania!
posted on Jan 2, 2002 - View this thread

NYC Mayor Returns $10 Million Check From Saudi Arabia For Anti-Israel Position Mayor Giuliani is magnificent. What else is there to say (I'm sure something...)
posted on Oct 11, 2001 - View this thread

Sources say that Giuliani will seek to extend his term. It was unclear whether the mayor would try to amend those laws so voters could elect him for a third term or whether he would try to extend his current term. Do these circumstances warrant a term extension? Or should Giuliani retire at the end of the year and head up the clean-up efforts?
posted on Sep 24, 2001 - View this thread

What does Wille Brown's staff know that we don't? Apparently, Mayor Brown got a warning 8 hours before the attack, and is still in SF because he heeded their advice. What did they know and how did they know it?
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Giuliani requests 6,000 body bags. I don't feel like this is ever going to end...
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

Bernie for mayor! Kramer For Mayor! NY has a lot of choices for mayor.
posted on Aug 28, 2001 - View this thread

Bernhard Goetz, the 1980s vigilante who shot four black teenagers, is running for Mayor of New York. And he likes squirrels. Really, really likes squirrels. As a resident of New York City, can I just say YIKES! (Thanks to Ross)
posted on Jul 5, 2001 - View this thread

Bloomberg for NYC Mayor? ...Media mogul tosses his hat into the ring. If he wins, he can stream press conferences on his own channel. :)
posted on Jun 5, 2001 - View this thread

The mayor of my town is being indicted for murder tomorrow morning, just two days after winning the his party's primary. He is suspected of playing a role in the 1969 race riot slaying of Lillie Belle Allen. This story will probably break nationally tomorrow morning, as he is led away in handcuffs.
posted on May 16, 2001 - View this thread

Bloomberg to Run For NYC Mayor "Mack added: 'This isn't an ego thing'.'' Really?
posted on Apr 30, 2001 - View this thread

Polls show Bill Clinton would be elected Mayor of New York City in a landslide. No Democratic or Republican challenger would come within a mile of him. Would solve his little "office budget" problem, too, and get him and Hillary back in public housing in NYC! So long, Chappaqua...
posted on Mar 11, 2001 - View this thread

Whose Christ is this anyway? While the Mayor of New York may object to what he perceives as an insult to Catholic belief--forgetting that his own adultery is not as yet deemed acceptable behavior in Catholic belief--many Catholics have no problem with a naked, black, woman Jesus.
posted on Mar 9, 2001 - View this thread