REVEREND HAS OFFICIALS SPEECHLESS

The Rev. Edward Earl Young was penciled in last week to address the Alachua
County Commission for the fourth time in four meetings about the way he
felt he was treated by a judge recently at the courthouse.

Young wore faded blue jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and a crumpled straw
hat. He responded to the chairman with, "Yessir, massur." And he likened
his experience at the courthouse to a lynching.

The scene tested the meeting management skills of Hutch Hutchinson, who had
been elected chairman less than an hour earlier.

Then-Mayor Paula DeLaney threw Young out of a City Commission meeting a
year ago after a similar confrontation.

During Young's presentation last week, no commissioner, or anyone else for
that matter, said a word.

"I should have handled the whole thing differently, but it was the shell
shock of the whole schtick," Hutchinson later said.

Gainesville pot case passed over: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear
arguments today in a case between the city of Chicago and organizers of a
marijuana-legalization rally.

But if things had worked out a little differently, Gainesville city
attorney Marion Radson would be addressing the nation's highest court instead.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a dispute over whether
Chicago city officials can require pro-pot activists to get a permit before
allowing them to hold a rally in a city park.

The Chicago case is similar to a 1995 case between Gainesville city
government and the organizers of Hempfest, the city's annual
pot-legalization rally.

Lower courts delivered conflicting rulings on the two cases last year,
making it likely that the Supreme Court would hear one of the cases. The
court chose to review the Chicago case.

Radson admits to being a little disappointed.

"I felt like I was on the verge either of greatness or of a tremendous
failure," he said.

Clash likely on reform board: In a move to embrace more opposing views, the
Alachua County Commission selected Roger Austin to fill a vacant position
on the Campaign Finance Reform Advisory Board.

Austin is likely to clash with the other eight citizen members on the
board, who are charged with developing recommendations to change the
fund-raising rules for county elections.

Now completing his master's thesis on campaign finance reform, Austin isn't
so sure that more regulation is the right way to go.

"Maybe we shouldn't do anything at all," Austin said.

Quote of the week:

"We are not trying to transform a university town into Mayberry. That's not
going to happen."

- - Gainesville City Commissioner Warren Nielsen on the city's efforts to
curb out-of-control partying on football game weekends.