In every election, I can count on receiving emails like this one from John Keating in Tempe:

“This is getting silly!

 Your newspaper coverage of the Presidential Candidates is far from balanced.

I started noticing that the Democrats seemed to have more articles and

pictures of them in your paper.  I thought it was my imagination.  Then I

started keeping an unscientific count of the number of pictures and articles

featuring the presidential candidates. Not to my surprise, your paper covers

the Democrats far more (and usually in a more positive light) than the

Republicans…….even though your Native Son (John McCain) is in the race.

 I had hoped that your biased coverage of Democrat candidates was a one or

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Flip through the foreclosures listings http://www.tribunehomefinder.com/page/foreclosures/ if you want a sobering read on the shape of the Valley’s economy where it touches real people.

While the demos in my zip run the gambit I saw one home in foreclosure with an outstanding mortgage of $1 million.  That’s unfathomable to me.

Another story that hit close to home was in Thursday’s Tribune and reported that grocery prices rose by  7 percent in 2007.  We all know that trend is alive and well in 2008.

But keep your eye out for the silver linings. 

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First a disclaimer:

I am not high-brow.

To prove to you that I am not high-brow, one of the very first performances I attended in the inaugural year of the Mesa Arts Center was to listen to Bill Engvall tell potty jokes.

That wasn’t all that happened that night in November of 2005.

A member of the audience in the first row of the balcony laughed so hard that he or she kicked a panel loose. It fell to the floor below but not before bouncing off of another patron’s head leaving a bloody gash. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got an advantage over you. I can read Saturday’s Opinion 2 page in the Tribune and you have to wait until… Saturday.

But let me tease you some more.

Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman gets to take his shot…at us.

He sent us a column and because we wave the First Amendment flag quite a bit, we’re going to let him take his shot.

In the column he says the Tribune wrote a story that basically accused him of cooking up a “back-door” deal with the company that did the feasibility study and now manages the big League Dreams park complex.

None of our stories said that but setting up a straw man is a standard though slippery political debate technique, and we hope you won’t fall on it or for it.

But what really got my attention is when he says “Big League Dreams estimated we could build the Big League Dreams Park for $22.5 million. They were wrong.”

Yes, “they” were wrong all right as the park complex ended up costing $40 million.

But “they” didn’t pay the freight for being wrong. You did, if you are a taxpayer in Gilbert. The taxpayers and new home buyers paid the $40 million.

And who made the decision to plow ahead and spend the money? Well, “they” didn’t make that decision. And it wasn’t the taxpayers who made the decision. So who does that leave? Hmmm.

Surely Berman’s column tells us where the buck stops. I’m sure I just need to clean my glasses. Read the column on Saturday and let me know if you can figure out who takes responsibility in Gilbert.

Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman sure knows how to spark a newsroom debate.

And not about whether too much money was spent on Big League Dreams or whether the recall movement will go anywhere.

No, the debate was on what to do with the mayor’s “colorful” language.

When Tribune reporter Beth Lucas and photographer Ralph Freso found themselves witnessing an encounter between Berman and recall leader Fred Phillis, they got quite an earful.

This is what our story reported Berman said to Phillis: “You don’t have the (guts to run against me). You’re a rotten piece of (expletive) like you’ve always been,” Berman said to Phillis.

So how do we report on that earful, involving a vulgarism and slang term for parts of the male anatomy?

Carefully, that’s how, because readers often call us to task if we publish a photo or words that readers don’t want their children to see. “You are a family newspaper. We don’t want to see those words in print,” they tell us.

But what about online? The unwritten rules seem to be different, but maybe they shouldn’t be. The family friendly version or the unsantized truth?

What do you think?

  If you live in Gilbert, you owe it to yourself to watch ABC-15 reporter Josh Bernstein’s interview of  Mayor Steve Berman.

If you don’t live in Gilbert, you still owe it to yourself to see how one East Valley mayor didn’t handle the heat.

Berman is alternately rattled and belligerent as ABC-15 asks some tough questions.  Was it proper for the builder of the Big League Dreams sports complex to have also had a role in creating the document that outlined the project and invited bids?

Fair question, it seems to me, for a project that was supposed to cost the city $20 million to build and ended up costing $40 million.

“You guys have a reputation for being jerks,” Berman says hotly to a very straight forward question.

At one point Berman takes no responsibility for the process that led to construction of the project.  “Show me my signature on the document,” he snaps.

Berman says he can no more be held responsible for the process that created Big League Dreams than President Bush can be held responsible for what goes on at Abu Ghraib prison.

Yes, he really said that.

Links to the interview are on eastvalleytribune.com or abc15.com.

The city of Chandler landed Pearson, one of the nation’s largest producers of educational software, and 700 employees, and celebrated this week with a grand opening of its new innovation facility on Ray road off of Loop 101.

The company consolidated work groups from Mesa and Scottsdale.

While the economy is on the ropes, Chandler is still chalking up wins and leaving city officials beaming.

What’s wrong with Scottsdale and Mesa? Good question.

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