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Arturas Zuokas, mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, had enough. The mayor was so fed up with illegal parking that he took a spin in a Russian armored personnel carrier, crushing an illegally parked Mercedes along the way.
He said: ”I wanted to send a clear message that people with big and expensive cars can’t park wherever they feel like and ignore the rights of pedestrians and bike riders.
”It shows a lack of respect and won’t be tolerated. Of course, you have to have a sense of humour in my line of work and I thought this would be a way of drawing attention to the fact that the city intends to be proactive in its fight against illegal parking.”
That’s at least one driver who won’t be parking in the wrong place anymore. Link -via Arbroath
Lucy Lou became the mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky by beating 15 other candidates in the 2008 election. Those candidates included one jackass, one cat, an opossum, and one human. The rest were dogs, including Lucy. She has risen to the demands of her position, in which her duties are mainly to greet people in the tiny unincorporated community.
The election was a heated contest, with the candidates and their factions fighting like, well, cats and dogs.
Money freely and openly changed hands during the balloting. Voters pitched in $1 for each vote they wanted to cast. The poll tax was slated to fund the restoration of a historic church in Rabbit Hash, with more than $22,000 raised for the cause.
“It did what it was supposed to do,’ said Markesbery, who was born and raised in surrounding parts of Boone County. “It made Rabbit Hash highly visible.”
Lucy Lou’s victory was a win for the record books, as she broke through the doghouse glass ceiling. Although she’s the third canine to hold the post since it was created in 1998, she’s the first bitch in the mayor’s office after two male predecessors, Goofy and Junior. She appears to be unaffiliated with any political party, which is no problem in this town where they let sleeping dogs lie.
The sole human running for the office came in next to last, with just two votes. Link
(Image source: Lucy Lou’s MySpace page)
Voters in Tracy City, Tennessee elected Carl Geary mayor, even though he died a month ago:
His widow, Susan Geary, said his election “was not a surprise at all to me.”
“The day he passed away, people were calling with condolences and saying, ‘We’re still voting for him,’” she said.
Geary, 55, was known for his straight talking and served on the local council. He polled 285 votes to his rival’s 85.
Local business owners said the vote to elect Geary was as a protest against the current mayor, Barbara Brock.
“I knew he was deceased. I know that sounds stupid, but we wanted someone other than her,” said Chris Rogers, owner of the town’s Lunch Box restaurant.
Link | Photo: (unrelated) US Department of the Interior
Not happy with the current candidates for mayor? Why not write-in your choice? The National Ledger has a list of the top write-in vote getters for the New York City mayoral election … and the winner is:
Mr. Burns from ‘The Simpsons’ notched 25 write-in votes on Election Day for New York mayor. The Simpsons favorite character to hate, Homer Simpson’s billionaire boss, collected the most write-in votes for NYC Mayor.
More good stuff from Gotham’s mayoral election and the angry voters trying to make a point, according to the New York Daily News, "Rodney Dangerfield, who died in 2004, received a write-in vote."
Mad Magazine icon Alfred E. Newman, Fantastic Four arch-villain Victor Von Doom, Mickey Mouse, and Sleeping Beauty also received write-in.
Two feuding French mayors have taken steps to make their constituent’s commute into Paris extra painful. The mayor of Levallois-Perret made D909 into a one way street to help reduce commuter traffic going through his district. However, this created more traffic congestion in neighboring Clichy-la-Garenne.
The mayor of Clichy-la-Garenne responded in the obvious neighborly way of also making his district’s portion of the same street one way also -in the opposite direction!
Thousands of commuters travel through the two suburbs each day into Paris, and municipal and national police were called in to redirect traffic away from the gridlock.
From the Upcoming 
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Blanca Figueroa, the mayor of South El Monte, California, is one hardworking woman. In fact, you can often find her working in her office till the wee hours. Figueroa said that a mayor’s work is never done, but her fellow council members think that she’s actually living in her office!
"The mayor has been living at City Hall for the last eight months," said City Councilman Hector Delgado, who added of her office, "Does it look like a professional office or does it look like somebody’s bedroom?"
Delgado has been leading an effort to limit the amount of time Figueroa can spend at the office. He says he has surveillance video that shows Figueroa there at night, kicking back, cooking dinner and watching Mexican soap operas.
Kate Linthicum of The Los Angeles Times has the story: Link – via Super Punch
Photo: Nancy Pastor / LA Times
