The Atlantic City Between the Casinos.
“It’s no wonder we call the Atlantic City Council Meetings the Jerry Springer Show.” So says Zogby Blog in a post describing the public comment portion of a recent City Council meeting. It seems that HUD has decided that it no longer makes sense to continue to subsidize a couple local rundown buildings. The goal is to encourage the landlords to make improvements. The people who live in these places showed up to demand that the City pick up the slack.

One “enterprising” resident said, “People deserve affordable houses whether they work or not.” I assume that this non-worker would like affordable housing with a nice front porch on which to sit and watch the people who are paying for his housing drag their asses off to work every day.

Another local added this pearl of wisdom to the discussion: “Some people have summer homes here that are empty most of the time. Just because they paid for them, they get to keep them? That ain’t fair!” Interesting idea. Let’s seize those houses, at least during the winter months, and turn them over to the people who didn’t pay for them. Fairness in spades, I’d say. Well, even if I wouldn’t say so, Karl Marx certainly would.

Apparently no one on the City Council took issue with either statement.

Yep. Jerry Springer it is.

Note: As of this writing the permalink is not working (sigh), so you may have to scroll down to the June 24, 2003 entry, entitled Gimme Shelter.