Have you ever read an article and started yelling at the print?  I always want to yell at both newspaper articles and my radio.  Self-restraint prevails.  Here are some things I wanted to yell at Michael Clark’s print (Press of AC).

(Reading Mr. Clark -) Incumbent Mayor Scott Evans [...] criticized [former Mayor] Langford’s history in office after hearing the news Tuesday [Mr. Langford will challenege him], characterizing him as a one-dimensional mayor during his previous term.

One-dimensional?  Mr. Evans was appointed to be Mayor, not to have a free soapbox, campaigning for another year-long term.  Where are his concrete plans to shrink the budget?  How can the City condense services and employee responsibilities?  Where are his efforts to get public records online?  In short, what does Mr. Evans have to offer the City?

Langford “had his time,” Evans said in an emptied Resorts Atlantic City ballroom after making a quasi-State of the City speech to the city’s business community [the MBCA]. “It’s time to turn the page to change. (Langford) was part of the stagnation, and I want to move us forward.”

Term limits are a good idea.  Although, I wonder if Mr. Evans would hold himself to term limits?  In Mr. Evans’s short political career, he has violated his promise with the City Democratic Committee, City Council, and the voters not to run for another year.  He fits right in.  Will voters punish Mr. Evans at the polls for his dishonesty?
    Change? Change? CHANGE?  Is he stealing a line from Barack Obama?  Change to what? Change to where?
   This is almost as bad as when Mr. Evans says, “I wanna move the city forward.”  Forward to where? Forward to what?  Is any one else tired of promises of empty progress?

Evans has not been shy to go on the offensive against potential opponents, initially taking shots at Marsh’s 40-day term in office with expectations of facing him in the June primary.

“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.“  Mr. Evans has good ideas, but what are Mr. Evans’s accomplishments?  Hiring members of the Callaway Family?  (Read our previous comments on Ms. Lewis.)
          During his 40 days, Mr. Marsh did renew his rights to the nickname “Speedy.”  There was a strong sentiment during the Levy/Cappella administration that nothing was being accomplished.  Did emotions prevail over reason in the 40-day sprint of Mr. Marsh’s mayoral tenure?

Promoting a better partnership with the state to embrace a transformation in casino development. …”Atlantic City is at a turning point,” [Evans] told a full ballroom at Resorts Atlantic City on Tuesday afternoon.

Mr. Evans suggests more city government help with casino gaming.  It is government help (read – interference) driving down profit potential.  Restrictions on sports gaming, high tolls imminently becoming higher, & smoking restrictions are not helping South Jersey’s largest industry.   Despite government “help” Casinos do pretty well.

Last week, City Council pulled a resolution to give a $125,000 legal contract to Eric M. Bernstein and Associates, a law group based in Warren County that employs Philip George, Evans’ private attorney.

The proposed resolution could not be an unethical conflict of interest, could it?

“It was all sizzle and no steak,” said McDevitt, president of the Local 54 chapter of UNITE HERE. “I heard a lot of goals, but I’ll be damned if I heard a plan for any of them. I want a plan, I want to see a blueprint.”

Why would we expect an Atlantic City politician to outline a thorough plan of action? 

Fire Chief Dennis Brooks echoed McDevitt’s sentiments, referring to advice he once got from his brother-in-law, Whelan, the city’s former mayor.
          “He used to tell me that targeting any more than three issues is too many,” Brooks recalled. “He said focus on three issues and then move on to the next three when you start making accomplishments.”

That would be the sneaky way to propose goals without a way to accomplish them.  We should applaud the honest and long-winded way in which Mr. Evans proposes goals without a way to accomplish them. 

Evans said he had cut down his speech significantly already and plans to alter it to focus more on the budget before the next City Council meeting, where he will deliver his official State of the City address.

What did the Mayor cut from his speech?  “It goes from bad to worse,” as the old saying says.  Please buy Mr. Evans a copy of Kirkham’s Grammar.  Maybe Mr. Evans can discover brevity and clarity before his address to City Council.

On final analysis, Mr. Evans is a strict adherent to the religion of (empty) progress. As chief preacher for the religion of progress, he says again and again, “I am just trying to move the city forward.” He figures that if he says that ill-begotten phrase enough times, people will nod their heads like drones and echo, “we are moving the city forward, moving forward, forward. . . .” Forward to where, we ask? Forward to what?

Reading http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/atlantic_city/story/7531645p-7433679c.html, http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/atlantic_city/story/7531644p-7433662c.html