You had me at "Duh!"

Press conferences are funny affairs. Today I arrived at St. John and Cypress to watch Mark Funkhouser take questions from the press about TIF or other incentives for small business. All told I'd say there were about ten people there and that was including the reporters. Mark fielded some tough questions from Mike Mahoney. Jeffrey Spivak asked for a couple of clarifications as he jotted in his notepad. It seems fairly obvious from the aside remarks of the reporters that Alvin Brooks is running a campaign of fear and innuendo. It may be playing with the uninformed, but the educated voters are turned off by it. At one point the press was interviewing Bill Nigro about why so many small business owners are supporting the Funk, I found myself standing next to the man himself. It's not like we're strangers. Mark lives two blocks over from me. I took the opportunity to ask our future mayor my question. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Mark, before you get too big and forget about us little people, just tell me one thing. You know TIF-funded parking structures are not public infrastructure right?" He chortled a bit and sarcastically said "Well DUHH!!!" That's all I needed to hear.