ATLANTIC CITY - Where's the mayor?

Not since "Where's Waldo?" and "Where's the Beef?" has such a query caused such a stir.

Dammit, Inquirer! I wanted to make fun of the situation, not your lead! But... okay, I can do this. Yes. It's out of my head. Let's get back to Atlantic City.

If you didn't know, the government of Atlantic City is kind of like Philadelphia, except a billion times more incompetent and corrupt. No, really. It's actually that wild. Levy and his staff actually threatened people from The Press of Atlantic City when they first looked into his Green Beret lies.

The city wants Levy to let people know where he is so the government can function. There were rumors he was about to resign, but his staff says those rumors are false. And when a friend of Levy's and a State Assemblyman publicly questioned where the mayor was, his opponents said he was turning his back on a friend.

"My statement is out of frustration that I see a dysfunctional Atlantic City government that needs to fulfill its obligation to the people of Atlantic City, and really, the entire region," said [Jim] Whelan in a telephone interview yesterday. "The casinos are the lifeblood of this region and at a time when we are competing to attract new investment, we cannot have this kind of dysfunction and appearance of an unstable city government."

The city's image as a bastion of bad government strikes deeply with Whelan, one of the city's few modern mayors whose administration did not end in disgrace. Three of the city's last six mayors have been arrested.

Currently, one-third of Atlantic City's City Council members are in prison or awaiting sentencing. Another city councilman was caught in a videotaped sex act with a prostitute last year. He said he was set up by political opponents.

And then Whelan's Republican opponent blasted him for calling on a Democrat to, oh, I don't know, do his job. Oh man. This just gets better and better. I might need to move to Atlantic City. Do you think they have mayoral candidates who sing draped over a casket?

A.C. mayor goes AWOL [Inquirer]
Hearing on recall of Atlantic City mayor ends abruptly [Press of Atlantic City]
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