Megan Barry, the popular mayor of Nashville who wants the city to spend more than $5 billion on less than 30 miles of light-rail lines, has resigned from office after pleading guilty to “felony theft.” The thefts arose because she took her lover (who was the head of her security detail) with her on business trips at the city’s expense — for which he charged the city overtime.
Despite the loss of its biggest supporter, the May 1 election over the “absurdly expensive” light-rail plan will probably go ahead as scheduled. “Our traffic isn’t getting any better,” say supporters, not that it will get any better if the plan is approved.
Election or not, the Antiplanner has to wonder if there is a reason why mayors who support light rail seem to be more prone to sex scandals. There’s Portland’s Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who had an affair with a 13-year-old girl. There’s Portland’s later mayor, Sam Adams, who had an affair with an 18-year-old boy (the affair started before the boy was 18, but Adams insisted that they only kissed in the city hall bathroom until he was of age). Then there’s Seattle mayor Ed Murray, who resigned after numerous people accused him of molesting them when they were children. It’s probably just a coincidence, but at least Nashville’s mayor had the good sense to have an affair with someone older than the age of consent.
If there’s a correlation between corrupt politicians and child banging………..you’re right on the money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1GQehNcZZw
The Antiplanner wrote:
Election or not, the Antiplanner has to wonder if there is a reason why mayors who support light rail seem to be more prone to sex scandals. There’s Portland’s Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, who had an affair with a 13-year-old girl. There’s Portland’s later mayor, Sam Adams, who had an affair with an 18-year-old boy (the affair started before the boy was 18, but Adams insisted that they only kissed in the city hall bathroom until he was of age). Then there’s Seattle mayor Ed Murray, who resigned after numerous people accused him of molesting them when they were children. It’s probably just a coincidence, but at least Nashville’s mayor had the good sense to have an affair with someone older than the age of consent.
When I saw the heading, it of course reminded me of another Mayor Barry. That would be Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. the late former Mayor-for-Life of the District of Columbia, who certainly had sex scandals while serving as mayor, including intimate encounters with the female employees of the “This is It?” strip joint on 14th Street, N.W. and more famously being arrested in a private suite at the Vista Hotel while smoking crack cocaine with Hazel Diane “Rasheeda” Moore, where he said “that bitch set me up” (video) while being arrested by FBI special agents (note that in my opinion he was “set up” by law enforcement).
This Barry was always enthusiastic about other people the riding heavy rail transit system known as Metro (there is no light rail in D.C.), though he was not known to use it much himself, preferring a chauffeur driven city-owned limousine, usually a Lincoln.
Barry left the office of D.C. mayor in 1999 and died in 2014, but was in the news recently, as a statue of him was installed outside the District Building (the D.C. city hall or municipal building). Never mind that Barry was the elected leader of what the Washington Monthly magazine called The worst city government in America.
Not excusing Megan Barry’s actions but the felony theft charge is very selective prosecution.
The number of politicians (or city planners) who bring along significant others or family members along for the ride at taxpayer expense is enormous.
The others are caught all the time and, at worst, they pay some of it back. Some people wanted her out of there.
Hopefully something good comes out of of all this and the taxpayers save $ 5 billion (probably much more).
Rob Ford raised a lot of red flags before he was mayor of Toronto. He could have done a lot more damage, so bizarrely the entire drug scandal with him just put a big spot light on what kind of a person he really was :$