Can Phone Books Catch Politicians in a Residential Lie?

Johnny Northside has a story about Lennie Chism, who apparently wasn’t spending much time, if any, at the Minneapolis 5th Ward address he claimed to reside at during his unsuccessful campaign for a city council seat. As Johnny tells it, rotten phone books played a role in cracking this case:

Very little activity was noted at the house…

…and, for a long time, a phone book sat moldering on the porch. Yes, I know I’ve said a lot of harsh things about phone book dumping by Dex and other companies, but sometimes–though rarely–you can glean useful information based on the presence of a rotting phone book. In this case, there just didn’t seem to be much activity at the house. But one day, a FOR RENT sign appeared out front.

Perhaps Mr. Chism will agree that rotting phone books can be a burden, since their presence is a good indicator that a property is either unoccupied, poorly cared for, or both?

Let’s assume for a second that Mr. Chism actually was living at the address he claimed to reside at on Emerson Ave N. In that case, he chose to ignore the phone books rotting on his front steps, thus contributed to the blight of the community he claimed he planned to clean up if elected. That’s a bit of a disconnect in my book.

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