Nominee: Best picture by an unemployed journo

We came damn close to going to the meet-and-greet for Columbia City Councilman and mayoral candidate Kirkman Finlay III tonight. What would be the vibe? Would it be just rich country club Republican types? But, eh, when the time rolled around, we weren’t feeling it. Brad Warthen decided to talk to Finlay this morning, though, and ended up being greeted by a stack of data.

Finlay is the resident budget maven on the Council, so he had all these spreadsheets and the like, and talked about the city’s truly shitty, shitty, shitty fiscal situation. Warthen says, in effect, that Finlay is better suited to his current position — as an opposition figure — than actually leading Columbia. Makes sense. Then, there was anxiety about figuring out Finlay’s data.