So late Friday afternoon, as I was trying to get my other two stories in the bag for the night, my one editor calls me and tells me we got an anonymous letter faxed to us, could I do the requisite calling on it? Of course, I said, even though it would entail contacting our venerable tourism deity. The letter was written by Speros to a marketing guy for AM-890 WLS thanking him for the opportunity, but no, the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau will NOT be participating in any promotions with WLS, the Gary/Chicago International Airport and Hooters Air, because it's the LCCVB's position to bring people TO NWI, not take them out. That's a reasonable position, I think to myself, even after he scoldedasked me as to why I even thought it was a story -- which, as I've mentioned before, is, like, the No. 1 way to get on my shitlist. Why do I think it's a story? Oh, I don't know: a) you're killing funding on efforts to promote NWI and b) my editor says so.

Jackass.

The problem is, Speros didn't find it necessary to discuss this with Airport Administrator Paul Karas or Marketing Director Denise Williams; when I called Karas for his take, he was quite unhappy, not to mention completely blindsided by the decision. To wit:

(A direct quote that made the paper and everything. That? Totally made my week, I'll have you know.)

You know how everyone who's anyone in NWI has been talking about unity and working together toward a common goal and all that for like, oh, the past 30 years or so? This would've been a great time to embrace that concept. I mean, yeah, I get it that NWI in the middle of winter when there's snow on the ground and butt-cold temperatures likely isn't one's idea of paradise, so promoting it to a market that's surrounded in sunshine might not be intuitive at first glance. But I thought the whole purpose of marketing the airport was to get people to USE THE AIRPORT, regardless of whether people are coming to hang out in the stellar NWI nightlife OR to come visit relatives, of which many people living in St. Petersburg or Vegas have here. If they're using the airport and find that it's a gem -- and it really, truly is -- does it matter what people are using it for? And that's not even getting into Speros' presumptuousness in making that call without even running it past the airport in the first place. Suppose he brought his concerns to Karas or Williams before he withdrew the money (and I don't know how much money it is, because I wasn't able to get a hold of the WLS guy) -- is it unreasonable to think that perhaps the three of them could've come to a solution that would've addressed everyone's concerns? The three of them are smart people -- I'm sure they could've worked something out.

I repeat: Lake County, and its taxpayers, are paying this clown THE HIGHEST SALARY IN THE COUNTY for this kind of wit and wisdom.