Another Scoop?

Well, maybe not, but it looks like Eureka Mayor, Pete Levallee, won't be running unopposed. Problem is, I can't remember the guy's name.

So, I'm flying the skies over Aces High late yesterday afternoon, turning and burning. There's a knock on the door. The guy at the door says he needs signatures as he's filing papers to run for Mayor of Eureka. Turns out he lives two houses behind me, on the corner of F and Trinity Streets.

We get to talking. Once again, the Marina Center/ Balloon Tract issue isn't on the candidate's radar screen, Tish Wilburn being the other one with such sentiments. He says he wants to do something about all the drug problems in Eureka, meth being the big one.

He mentioned that we had at least a "few crack houses in the neighborhood", his house having been one before he moved in three years ago (and it might well have been). He mentions someone said we had one next door to our house, that being the one just to our north.

I had to tell him I didn't know anything about the house next door being a druggie house. The girl that lives there is a cutie pie and nice enough, although her "husband" seems to be either in jail or prison as of late. The cops have been there a few times since she moved in but I'll have to say the few people she's had come visit her look quite the straight folk, most of them anyways.

He then tells me the guy that used to live behind me (between his house and mine) caught that girl in his back yard a few times and she was some "tweaker", or some such. I had to mention that the girl hadn't lived there but a few months and the guy behind me moved long before she moved in so I didn't see how that could be true.

Well, maybe the former neighbor behind me was referring to the bunch that lived there before her? I doubt it. Not that they were all that straight and narrow, but I never saw any evidence of the place being a crack house. The people that lived there before that bunch were there for a long time and were pretty straight neighbors from everything I'd seen.

He seemed somewhat confused at that but, in keeping some rapport up, I mentioned the house a couple houses south, across the street, that had a reputation as a druggie house, as well as the activity that one would associate with such.

Anyway, he wanted to do something about getting rid of all the "tweakers and homeless types...". Funny how I hear that on the same day from two different candidates. One thing I never had the presence of mind to ask him was, How do you plan on dealing with this problem?

I found it somewhat troublesome that he was relying pretty much on innuendo in the case of my current next door neighbor. Who are we going to go after next?

Those types of people have to live somewhere, although I think we both agreed that it might be better to have them in one part of town than encroaching more and more on the parts of town that aren't so bad... at least not yet.

But that's just kind of the way things go in any town: As sections of town get older, more and more of the good folks leave and the riff- raff move in. I appreciate his and other's concerns about it, but what can you do. Besides, how do I know when the powers that be might start considering me riff- raff. Or maybe they already do?

Anyway, just a quick glance at his petitions showed he was well on his way to getting the signatures he needed. How well he'll do in the end is hard to say. We don't know who else might end up in the race for Mayor.

But he seemed like a single issue guy. He pretty much gave me a blank stare when I asked him about the Balloon Tract controversy. If that ends up being the big issue come November, as most think it will, he'll be left out in the cold.

Then again, that's two for two of the Eureka City candidates we've seen so far that have little, if any, opinion on the Balloon Tract controversy. Wouldn't it be weird if the anti- crime and drug candidates end up taking the election in November?