Taxpayer funded political ads in Chattanooga

When you send political mailings you normally send them to registered voters only. No need to waste them on folks who can't vote. And of course, to save money, you send only one to a household where multiple voters reside. No need to waste money sending multiple pieces to one address.

So, when I saw HERE about mailing a Chattanooga newsletter, which is a little more than a political ad for the current administration, to "every registered voter household" all sorts of alarms went off. Clearly the blog is anti-Mayor Littlefield in a big way but the complaint appears to be legit. HERE are the archived issues of the newsletter. The second page of the July 07 newsletter is where the statement is made.

This is just one more example of a very troubling trend. Governments are getting into the PR business in a very big way and many of these taxpayer funded activities are very thinly veiled political campaigns funded by taxpayers. Web pages for many cities and counties have pictures and bios for many of the officials which are completely unnecessary and are more campaign ad than citizen services. This area is ripe for litigation.