There's Something Fishy in Pittsburg

I couldn't get Pittsburg City Manager Marc Grisham's comment out of my head last night. When asked if he had ever taken any money from Lyon Homes his first comment was, "If you print that I will sue you for liable."

Why the paranoia? All I did was ask a question and suddenly his voice raised, his back went up, and the cool, calm, somewhat collected City Manager, who once worked for an engineering firm in Southern California-William Lyon Homes is based in Southern California- went borderline ballistic.
I don't know what's going on. I just asked a question. I also wanted to know why the engineering report-the one possibly pointing blame and responsibility for the hillside collapse that devasted families-was being squashed, squished and sat on until after the election.

Good ol' Marc said I could put in a request and get the report- in ten days or so if he got the O.K. to release it.

And while we’re on the subject of Good ol’, lets focus for a minute on one of the grandest Good ol’ Boys around, The General. The Grand Poo-Bah of builders. None other than General William Lyon. Head of William Lyon Homes.

For the record, I am not saying there is any funny stuff going on between some members of the Pittsburg City Council and William Lyon Homes. Hell, what does an Air Force General know about politics? Those guys aren’t political. Everyone knows you become a general because you win battles and wars and direct the country into conflicts that are for the good of the people. Conflicts are great for the people.

And, isn’t that what building homes is all about. Doing it for the good of the people? And, if you have to fight a battle along the way, because of a mistake here or a mistake there, so what? It's all for the good of the people.

You have to admit, however, there are more fish stories coming out of Pittsburgh than there were when the fishing fleet was there. Those were fish stories.

What are these?