The desperation period: Tuesday part two

Trump calls Harris "mentally impaired."

“Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired, Sad. But lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way. There’s something wrong with Kamala. And I just don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing. And you know what, everybody knows it.”

We have entered the a moment of maximum crazy. Locally, Curt Ankerberg is flailing, making wild accusations as the campaign comes to an end. Some readers will conclude Ankerberg is mentally unhinged. He writes the council calling them the "bumbling idiots."

Nationally, Trump is sounding more and more like Ankerberg. Trump has ramped up from calling Kamala Harris "low-IQ" to saying she has a mental disability. Harris is a college graduate, an attorney, and the debater who was widely acknowledge to have bested Trump by baiting him into self-defeating rants. Trump looks desperate.

The crazy is getting higher and higher. 

Trump called his speech "dark." He said we are being invaded by stone cold killers, dark-skinned foreigners who are nothing like us. They will cut your throats when they break into your kitchens. Things are terrible, but he can fix things if he is allowed to take control and be rough, very rough.  

The frantic elevation of this rhetoric reminded me of a moment in the past.

The end of summer of 1967 did not seem dark to me when I got on the airplane at the Medford airport to go off to college. A song, "Your love keeps lifting me higher and higher" was recorded in August of 1967, the apogee of the Summer of Love, and it was on KYJC and KBOY top-40 radio that fall. The world was full of possibility and my generation was going to fix what was wrong. There was an uptempo frantic quality to the song, but it was okay because it was love that was getting higher and higher.

Keep my love going, now, higher and higher (lifting me higher and higher, higher)
I said keep on lifting (lifting, lifting, lifting)
Lift me up mama (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting me (lifting me higher and higher, higher)
Higher and higher

This is the second of two short posts today.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your emai go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.] 

Tuesday, part one: Kevin Stine, a Medford City Council member, responds to Ankerberg.

Curt Ankerberg is misinformed.

There is public bidding for the Fire Station 15 project.

Kevin Stine, a Medford City Council member for 10 years, responded to Ankerberg's letter to the council.  

Kevin Stine

Stine ignored mayoral candidate Curt Ankerberg's comments calling the city council "dumbasses" and "corrupt trash." Ankerberg used those and other words in a letter to the council I published verbatim yesterday. Stine addressed the two substantive elements of Ankerberg's letter. Could Fire Station 15 be repaired rather than replaced, as Ankerberg asserted? And is the contract to rebuild it a "NO-BID contract to Outlier Construction" as Ankerberg also asserted?

Kevin Stine wrote:

No. There is not adequate rehab for the 50 year old building. The station should have been replaced long ago and it is the right move to get it done. Much has been written about the teeter-totter toilets at the current station. The new fire station will be on the same site, but will be bigger and designed in such a way as to hold a second EMS team, being a great benefit for the citizens of Medford.

There was a public RFP for the awardee to be part of the Construction Manager/General Contractor process. Basically this has the architect work with the construction company to look for ways to keep the project moving forward and keep within budget. There can be times where there is value-engineering to keep costs down.

Any comments that Medford doesn't utilize proper processes when agreeing on contracts is erroneous. Oregon law has very strict requirements for building public facilities, and the City of Medford adheres to all laws and regulations.

Kevin Stine lives in West Medford with his wife and daughter. He served nine years in the U.S. Navy with three deployments aboard submarines. He is a Navy Reservist and a substitute teacher in the Medford schools.

Curt Ankerberg is a Republican, a Trump supporter, and a frequent candidate for local political offices.

Note: The City of Medford website currently has this notice of current bid opportunities with a link to announcement of bids for Fire Station 15: Click here.

That link leads to this PDF file:

Click here

This is the first of two short posts today.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your emai go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]