More on my little town

Before you read this, you should read this from August 1, 2011: http://randomrants08.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-hometown.html

Done? Good. Do you feel enlightened? Probably not. So let me enlighten some more.

No, Elk Grove does not have a gang problem. Are you idiots? A gang problem? Do you know what a gang problem is? Go look at the website for LAPD and click on Southeast. That, my friends, is a gang problem. Then go look at the crime map for Elk Grove. In my area, there were 4 freaking thefts. 4. Total. 12 in all of Elk Grove. Total. 12. Um, folks, there were more than 12 in a day in Southeast LA. They average 12 in a day. We have 12 in 14 days. Do the math.

Are there bad folks who live here? Yes. DUH! There are bad folks who live in Beverly Hills. Hell, in the rich area of LA, there were 43 crimes in the last week. 43 in a week. That would average out to 86 in 14 days. I am not a math person, but that is about 7 times more crime than we have. And don't tell me that there are one million people in the Beverly Hills area of LA. There just aren't. Hell, Beverly Hills itself only has 34,000 people or so.

So, lets put this to rest: there is no gang problem in Elk Grove. None. Not at all. Are there kids who think they are gangbangers? Sure. There are also idiots who want to stir up trouble, adults who think they are tough, douchebags who are racist and losers who make crap up. If you think there isnt a place in this great country of ours that doesnt have those people, I have a bridge to sell you. And maybe some swamp land!

Now, lets not pretend our city is perfect. Apparently, the city can't find it in the budget to buy some freaking blue light bulbs for Autism awareness month. Had I known money was so tight, I would have started by asking why we pay Bank of America $108,000 to manage our money. Maybe we could drop that by say $108,000. Seriously, why does a city pay $108,000 to a bank to manage our money? Here is an idea - the bank should pay us interest. Novel concept. But seriously, we couldn't come up with the money to put up a couple of stinking blue light bulbs? They could turn the Empire State Building blue and we couldn't put up blue lights at City Hall or Laguna Town Hall or some place like that? Dear Elk Grove, I got a couple of bucks for blue freaking lights next year. And I got a construction friend who will install them. Deal? Sincerely, Me

And then we have politicians. I won't lump them all together. But let me say this: if you come out to one of my events and shake my hand for a freaking picture, you sure as hell better remember me and when I put on the event next year, you should be the first person to sponsor it. Is that really asking for too much?

And if you want to bring professional sports to our fine city (read this: http://randomrants08.blogspot.com/2011/12/mls-in-elk-grove-i-think-not.html) then how about you support things that actually happen? You want to get professional soccer? Then support a soccer event - especially one that gets tweeted about my, say, professional soccer teams! I mean, I am not a genius on product development, marketing, etc... but I did grow up as the son of a guy who did that crap for a living. I learned a thing or two. You don't jump from nothing to the big time unless you show you can support the little things. It just doesn't happen in this day and age. So if you want to bring in something like MLS, then start by supporting a little soccer game that raises money and gets attention.

(Sure, its my game and its a bit self serving, but its not nearly as bad as what these folks do. I want to raise money for a good cause which will then show the powers that be that we support soccer. That in turn makes it easier to get them to support you. Its not rocket science folks.)

So there you have it. We are not utopia. But we are not some crime riddled city where people should flee to the safety of their bunkers. We are a nice town with some issues and politicians who can pay lawyers to fight over things, but not put up a couple of damn blue light bulbs.