Uncertain of our future, we now turn to you, our readers, to tell us what to do. We’ve created a poll so you can determine the future of this blog. The votes will be tallied on Friday, Jan. 18, and after that date, Merced Politics and TV will either fold or return with a VENGEANCE.

Click here to take the poll.

There are two questions:

Should Merced Politics and TV continue to exist?

and

If yes, what should Merced Politics and TV focus on? (write-in are acceptable and binding if victorious).

 Thank you!

Why endorse cogs in a (de)faulty machine that has ripped off hundreds of families and first-time homeowners in Merced?

Democracy isn’t about choosing who’s less likely to endanger our livelihood. Rick Osorio and Ellie Wooten have their consensus, and it’s not about us.

Abstain from voting in the mayoral race, and we can prove a point: “business as usual” in Merced just isn’t good enough any more.

Before we close this latest chapter in half-hearted Internet campaigning, Merced Politics and TV can now disclose that we have discovered a major Internet-related SCANDAL in this year’s mayoral race.

Click here to visit http://www.ellieformayor.com. From the domain name, you probably think you’re going to find that glamor shot of our Mayor Ellie Wooten all looking like she just got out of a refreshing spa treatment and maybe take that survey to more fully participate in the direction of our fair City.

You might imagine our shock when we were immediately redirected to Rick Osorio’s campaign site. Apparently, someone in Osorio’s campaign — perhaps even the same volunteers who faked a union bug or faked endorsements or faked donation forms — set up a fake web site in order to convert the votes of Ellie Wooten supporters stunned by Osorio’s clever tricks.

It’s not as though Wooten supporters are going to change their votes because of a cybersquatted domain name which tells Osorio’s heart-rending life story. No, this is another petty, pointless trick, minor in the bigger picture of our County’s moral gray area.

Is the bait-and-switch web site illegal? No, it’s perfectly legal. But it’s more of the same from Osorio, the man who will tell anyone anything: straddling the ethics fence in order to get what he wants. We can surely expect more of the same politics-as-usual if Osorio’s elected to (somewhat) higher office.

Be warned, candidates: Merced Politics and TV is taking a long, hard look at our mayoral vote this year, and we don’t like what we see.

PS: It’s a little weird, too, that Mayor Ellie Wooten’s banner ad on the Sun-Star’s web site redirects to her personal business web site with the fetching headline Meeting your real estate needs!

UPDATE: We’re on the front page! Thanks again for the mention, Sun-Star. We trust your judgment, but are you sure this is really front-page news?

Since City Council, City staff and our local realtors refuse to take responsibility for Merced’s housing and development disaster aside from cleaning up after their mess, maybe we’ll have better accountability if we simply sign our City away to the developers. It would make sprawl-loving Raceway champion Bob Acheson’s life easier too. Please, people — think of the realtors!

From Governess Wooten’s diary: “Thee Guidesmen very much enjoyed our Gifts of Blackened Tri-Tip and Inoculated Blankets. We have included their Lands in Merced’s Specific Urban Development Plan in order to Beautify and Protect them in Perpetuity. This shall be known as Sensible Enlargement of Our City.”

Merced Politics and TV will do its best to bear the heavy burden of anonymous political sniping from afar.

Welcome To The e-Hood

If you’re reading this on your computer, you’ve probably heard of blogs. If you’re reading this in the newspaper and you haven’t heard of blogs, we’ve got bad news: You are behind the times. (Or as the local news editor of the Sun-Star styles himself, a trogluddite.)

For people who keep up on the magical world of the Internet, Lips is pleased to report there’s a new blog in town at mercedpoliticsandtv.wordpress.com.

The author of Merced Politics and Television is anonymous, but he or she isn’t shy about calling out local officials by name. The blog takes aim at the entire City Council, planning commissioner Carole McCoy and council candidate Bob Acheson.

The new site is good news for those of us who were mourning the demise of local real estate blog Merced Going Quickly, which shut down a few months back and left a gaping hole in the snark-o-sphere.

If you took seriously real estate broker and City Planning Commissioner Carole McCoy’s paeans to the industry, it would be difficult to discover precisely who is responsible for Merced’s state of affairs. According to McCoy, realtors are like medical professionals:

We work with so many people from so many walks of life. The service we provide is a real personal one-on-one service with clients. Doctors work closely with people on health matters and we work with people on their family lifestyle. What better people can you have to serve?

Carole McCoy is a like a doctor…except her industry is at the epicenter of a crisis that makes people sad and destroys their lives, and doctors make us healthy and perform miracles. It’s like the difference between a crippling, contagious plague and unicorns.

Taking ocean cruises is apparently Carole McCoy’s primary hobby. She has taken 27 cruises, nearly one for every year she’s lived in Merced. All this despite working in a profession where, in her own words,

We have no retirement benefits, health care, paid vacations or sick leave and we work for a promise.

Let’s be real here — these cruises may not be paid vacations, but they are accumulated capital from the commissions of hundreds of flipped homes in a county where one in 68 homes sits in foreclosure and 9.3% of us are officially unemployed. Nice work if you can get it!

When making decisions, Merced’s political class has three positions:

1.) Powerlessness and victimization. As elected (and appointed — I’m looking in your direction, Carl!) representatives, the City Council and Planning Commission often understand that terrible things have happen to their constituents, but act lost and helpless when asked to create positive solutions for Merced’s crises. They understand their role to be middlemen between Developers and Residents. Developers often make mistakes, such as creating incompatible land uses and building crappy homes. Our supine reps watch at a distance, and intervene as pressure valves in times of inconvenience, like when the lawns of foreclosed homes become “eyesores.”

2.) Crumbs from the table. Let’s take another look at Carole McCoy’s recent letter to the editor. McCoy cites her realtors’ association’s “endless” charitable activity, such as the Christmas Can Tree and raising cash for the Salvation Army, and concludes by daring the hapless, lazy reader to volunteer as much as she does. When not looking for work, cooking up some rice and potatoes, or squatting in foreclosed homes, Mercedians have demonstrated an impressive ability to stick together and survive in creative ways. Whether it’s calling a new sidewalk “growth paying for itself” or slapping some mashed potatoes on the stytrofoam plate of a homeless person around the holidays, the current band-aid approaches are clearly inadequate for the problems confronting our community.

3.) Faith in technology and ‘cutting edge’ planning initiatives. When all else fails, our reps are happy to foist our problems onto future generations through a myriad of overlapping regional planning initiatives and a blind faith that market forces will eventually develop solutions to today’s crises. The real lessons of the market are all around us — in the families working in the fields threatened by deportation to the empty homes next door and a small class of elites blind to the destruction they’ve caused.

TO BOB ACHESON

Mr. Acheson, you received a $1,500 donation from the Riverside Motorsports Park (RMP) group, making them your campaign’s biggest funders. You’re also good friends with RMP Vice President Mark Melville.

• Do you agree with RMP Chief Executive John Condren that “people in Merced are so stupid”?

You are a proponent of the Raceway and proposed Wal-Mart distribution center. RMP CEO John Condren was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for his shady business practices. Wal-Mart was recently ordered to pay $141 million for not paying their Pennsylvania workers for breaks, on top of $172 million for not paying their California workers for breaks. There are another 70 pending labor-related lawsuits.

• As a City Councilor, are there any companies owned by rich, corrupt Anglos you wouldn’t do business with?

FOR RICK OSORIO

Thirty years ago, you were convicted of driving under the influence, which you describe as a “very valuable lesson.”

• How many second chances should current Mayor Ellie Wooten and the Board of A Woman’s Place give their embattled executive director Diana Almanza?

Mr. Osorio, the business hired by one of your volunteers to print your campaign signs added a fake union bug. This prompted you to apologize to “all the union guys.” The last time you ran for Mayor, one of your volunteers ran an ad in the Merced Sun-Star which listed people you claimed had endorsed your campaign but in fact had not. Your campaign apologized.

• If elected Mayor, how will you improve quality control so City staff don’t violate ethical or statutory laws or centuries-old traditions?