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No politically incorrect website documenting our crazy city council could be
complete without paying homage to the king of political incorrectness
himself - Slick Dick Nichols.
Few people in this town are without an opinion of Dick Nichols. To some, he's
a crazy old bigot. To others, he represents everything missing on this city
council - a common man full of honest, frank talk. For those of you
who were living in a cave for the last couple of months, let me bring you up to speed...
Dick Nichols first upset "the powers that be"
by running on Newport's Greenlight
slate. Now, to the developers that own and run this town, this is about as
bad as if he had run on the FreeNewport! ticket! (for the record, FreeNewport!
is NOT a political party - yet!)
So anyway, the Greenlight crew openly expressed their disdain for the
developers, and the candidates they support. If you haven't seen it yet,
check out the "Follow
the Money" page on the Greenlight website. That page really sums
it all up in a nutshell. Needless to say, Dick and his fellow Greenlight party
representative, John Heffernan, were not exactly welcomed with open arms after
they won. Rumors even circulated that John had even pondered resigning in those
first days...
Now common sense tells you that when you're surrounded by wolves, don't throw
them a bone to wet their appetite! Well, that was exactly Dick's predicament, and
he's thrown them plenty of bones almost every week!
The real problems for Dick started on May 22nd, 2003, when at a Planning Commission
meeting, Dick suggested that someone on the commission had taken a bribe. The irony
in that remark was the fact that the homeowner in question had actually been denied
by the commission, so there could not have been any bribe! But that didn't stop the
city council from starting their first witch hunt. ("Tod, can you help me tie
a noose?")
Luckily for Dick, the public had actually felt that although Dick may have missed
the mark on this one, they were confident that money had exchanged hands in the past.
They came to his rescue, and the issue was dropped by the city council at their June
10th meeting. See "Nichols -
UNCENSORED! " See Also "City
Council Drops Nichols Matter". ("Put it away Tod, they're all watching
us.")
The next witch hunt began when, on June 17, 2003, when, in a conversation with Daily
Pilot reporter, June Casagrande, Dick said that "With grass we usually get Mexicans
coming in there early in the morning and they claim it as theirs and it becomes their
personal, private grounds all day." June ran with the story, and perhaps fueled
the flames a little in her reporting of the conversation ("Get it back out - the
ADL said that we can borrow their guillotine!").
Needless to say, that was all "The Big Three" needed to rally the troops for their
second witch hunt in so many meetings! Everything was in place for their June 8th public
hanging of Dick Nichols: the Anti-Defamation League was there to make sure that
the rope was to regulation, real-live Mexicans even drove in from Anaheim and Santa Ana
to shorten the rope a little, camera crews were in place to document his slow death.
Luckily for Dick, the public came out one more time to support him. There is something
about a man that stands up for what he believes in, especially when many of his executioners
are obvious hypocrites! At the end of the day, after over two hours of testimony from
over 30 speakers, Dick managed to sneak out of that meeting in just one piece, thus
earning him our nickname of "Slick Dick Nichols" ("He won't stand still
Steve"). See "Nichols Censured."
"There's many a slip, betwixt a cup and a lip."
No offense Dick, we actually like you. We may not agree with everything that you say,
but we need someone to keep our city's aristocrats honest. And you seem to have an
uncanny ability to escape from the most vicarious of situations. We just hope that
you manage to muster up just enough political correctness to keep your job. If not,
then we will all be on the outside looking in, taking Bromberg's snide remarks with
no one to look to.
Hang in there...
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