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Florence Gatten will make her announcement today.

Odds are she won't run for mayor. There's even a decent chance she won't run for anything.

Florence has been such an enigma during her tenure on City Council -- at one turn a breath of honest, principled fresh air. ... at another, Hurricane Florence.

Now, even though she is well into her third term, I still don't quite know what to make of her.

As for what my hunch is today, it's that she's not running -- for mayor or city council. But that's solely a hunch. And I'm probably wrong. Gatten is a tough one to predict.

They held the NFL Draft over the weekend.

They televised 15 live hours of coverage over two days of young guys wearing suits and baseball caps and ESPN's finest gushing endlessly about prospects whose impact is impossible to predict.

Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. was still grading teams on their draft performance late into Monday might.

Remember Tommy Lee Jones in that scene with Harrison Ford in the storm drain in "The Fugitive"?

I don't care.

Why would anybody want to watch this stuff?

If you hadn't figured it out yet, the News & Record editorial board staunchly supports the Neuse River waterdog as the official state amphibian, not the leading contender, the bullfrog.

The waterdogs, a type of salamander, is unique to the state. There's nothing special about bullfrogs. They're everywhere.

The experts agree. Alvin Braswell, curator for amphibians and reptiles at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, tells the News & Observer of Raleigh (registration required) that the bullfrog is hardly unique to North Carolina, and, even worse, it carries a fungus that kills other amphibians. .

"It is a big frog, grows rapidly, is highly vocal, doesn't live long and eats anything they can stuff in their mouth," Braswell told the N&O.

So there you have it. Frogs or waterdogs. Another slippery moral and ethical dilemma for our lawmakers.

But will they have the political courage to do the right thing?

Remember the guy who authored a mean-spirited, rambling tome in the San Francisco area newspaper, Asianweek, subtlely titled, "Why I Hate Blacks"?

He may be even more troubled than we first suspected.

Fellow blogger Percy Walker tipped me off on a piece in The Village Voice that reveals darker views.

The Voice reports: "Eight hours after the executions of 32 students at Virginia Tech, Eng posted a grainy video of himself on YouTube. 'Good morning, America,' says an exuberant Eng from his New York apartment, 'I'd just like to say that I just read about the Virginia Tech incident and it was the funniest thing I ever read in my life.' "

"A part of me wishes I was Cho," Eng, 23, tells The Voice. "He is my hero."

A bad situation just got worse for WXII anchor Tolly Carr.

His blood-alcohol content was 0.13, or about 1.5, times the legal limit -- four hours after he arrested in a fatal car wreck that claimed the life of 26-year-old Casey Bokhoven. For the News & Record's story, click here.

As Carr's attorney, Locke Clifford, said, those results, released by a judge today, are indeed "an unfortunate fact."

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A gentle reminder: "One Guilford: A Leadership Symposium," sponsored by the News & Record and hosted by High Point University, is less than two weeks away.

The event invites civic, business and political leaders from throughout Guilford County to explore key questions concerning the county's assets, challenges and best opportunities to grow and prosper.

It's the first of what we hope will be a series of community discussions on leadership

The program will include a keynote speech from Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest and Braniff International airlines, and a panel discussion among county leaders. Later in the morning, Putnam will join the panel in a Q&A session with the audience.

Center for Creative Leadership President and CEO John Alexander will offer closing remarks.

To sign up to attend, click here.

It wasn't that long ago that a spate of college cheating stories seemed to grab the headlines every other day and we wondered aloud whether we were becoming not a nation accomplished in achieving, but in finding clever new ways to beat the system.

Why be good when the path was easier and quicker to the top if we were bad?

Remember the University of Maryland students who used text messaging to share answers?

Then the headlines went away. But maybe the cheating didn't stop.

The latest news comes from Duke University, where 34 MBA students have been convicted of cheating in the largest cheating scandal in the program's history.

At least the students practiced the principles of teamwork, a report from the News & Observer noted in a story this week.

They also seem to represent an international coalition. The students, who are enrolled in the Fuqua School of Business, are from the United States, plus countries on four other continents.

The penalties are severe: Nine students face expulsion; 15 will automatically flunk the course and be suspended from school for a year.

Nine will receive failing grades in the course, but no additional sanctions.

The temptation to cheat is probably as high as it's ever been. Technology makes it so enticing.

But so does the desperation to seek a competitive edge.

And none of us appears immune.

There's today's Sports section story about the Elon quarterback -- and Ragsdale grad -- who has lost his last year of playing eligibility because of an unspecified academic honor code violation.

Then there's the MIT dean of admissions recently resigned after it was revealed that she padded her resume with degrees she never earned.

As the Boston Globe reports, the resume of Marilee Jones listed degrees from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union College and Albany Medical College. None of which she actually possesses.

Yeah, I know, journalism has had its share of miscreants as well. You didn't think I'd forget that, did you?

And we're equally wrong and dumb and unethical when we do it. Actually more so, because there is a public trust involved.

This week's News & Record stories about a possible mega-downtown development are based primarily on hopes, wishes and prayers. At least for now.

But what a huge boon for the city if this massive sucker comes to pass.

What's most encouraging is that as ambitious as it is, the idea doesn't seem nearly as unattainable as it might have a few years ago.

That's because so many impossibilities have become realities lately in the center city.

At one point, the best hope for the old Wachovia tower appeared to be implosion. Now Center Pointe is well under construction there.

And at one point, if someone would have suggested that an even bigger development would follow Center Pointe -- on Murrow Boulevard -- they might have been asked what they'd smoked for breakfast.

An interesting subplot to this story is another wild and crazy idea: An ACC museum as part of the new project.

I've always personally favored downtown for the proposed museum/hall of fame, even though a consultant has advised against it and even though Managing Director Matt Brown of the coliseum prefers it as part of the coliseum complex.

I certainly agree with Marc Bush of the Sports Commission that a center city site shouldn't be ruled out.

Yeah, I know "Spiderman 3" is out. But the best movie I've seen in recent memory is the "The Trials of Darryl Hunt."

It's hard not to be touched by the now-familiar story of the Winston-Salem's man's wrongful conviction for the gruesome 1984 murder of newspaper copy editor Deborah Sykes.

But what this thorough, richly detailed documentary does even for those who know the beginning, middle and end of Hunt's tale is convey in every excruciating step along the way his seemingly impossible quest to prove his innocence.

The film also shows Hunt's incredible capacity for honor, grace and forgivenness, despite the utter horror of spending 19 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.

For instance, Hunt might never have spent all that time in prison if he had merely fingered a friend, which police initially pressed him to do.

And he could have agreed to deals that would have reduced his prison time, but kept insisting in his gentle but firm way that could not admit to a crime he had nothing to do with.

I think the film significantly underplays the role the weekly Winston-Salem Chronicle played in early on in asking tough questions about facts in the case that simply didn't add up. Of course, I'm not exactly objective about that. I was editor of the Chronicle at the time.

But it's masterfully done anyway. The film now is heavy rotation this month on HBO. Check it out.

This week's column:

Once considered a safe bet to run for mayor, at-large City Councilwoman Florence Gatten made it official last week. She's not running for anything.

In a news conference at city hall, Gatten formally declared her noncandidacy. Someone else deserved the chance to serve, she said.

Before making her announcement, the 60-year-old Gatten smiled and chatted with reporters and confided that she would like to have been more prepared, even as she handed out crisp copies of a two-page, typewritten, single-spaced statement — half of which, it turns out, she had memorized.

Vintage Florence.

She's nothing if not a stickler, who religiously states her points in sets of threes, works out with a personal trainer and sends interviewers handwritten thank-you cards.

Gatten also has been an enigma during her three-terms on City Council — at one turn a breath of honest, principled fresh air. At another, Hurricane Florence. A fierce idealist, a hard worker, a fastidious student of the issues — and a schoolmarm from hell who will cut you to shreds with blistering lectures that conjure the image of a wagging finger, even if there isn't one.

Even as she voices admiration for Gatten's smarts and tenacity, council colleague Sandy Carmany does allow that she can be, well, "a little preachy at times."

Says Gatten: "If you worry about what people think, you'll never cross the street."

Many of us had such high hopes when Gatten, a coach of candidates who runs her own political consulting firm, decided to practice what she teaches and run for office herself.

And a lot of those hopes were fulfilled. She is bright and energetic, an elected official who seems to genuinely relish and respect the job.

She speaks and writes in lyrical phrases about duty and democracy. Still, she occasionally wanders off into the Twilight Zone: the public dressing-down she gave to a college student at a council meeting; her call for the resignation of fellow council member Dianne Bellamy-Small; her snippy, dismissive remarks at times to citizens at council meetings.

She once told a group of voters they didn't always know what was best for them.
Well, sometimes they don't, she says, and they didn't in that particular case.

Gatten admitted during an interview last week that she does not "suffer fools gladly."

"But I have never knowingly been condescending to anyone. It's just not my nature."

Her campaign manager, Reid Phillips, says Gatten simply speaks her mind. "When she sees opportunity, she wants us to grab it."

In an age of spin and doublespeak, Gatten does makes herself perfectly clear. Consider this sampling of her observations about people and issues:

Former police Chief David Wray: " My support for him was so deep and so wide. I feel so betrayed."

JR notes proposed legislation in the state Senate that would call for all public employee compensation packages and employment contracts to be considered public records.

That would have seemed a foregone conclusion, but a state appeals court essentially ruled in 2005 that only the salaries needed to be revealed in a case involving the Charlotte Observer, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority and the Carolinas Medical Center.

That ruling led to the interpretation by some, including the UNC-Chapel Hil School of Government, "that no public personnel pay packages – beyond salary – could be disclosed and that employment contracts were secret."

Such notion is both preposterous and dangerous.

For more explanation from the N.C. Press Association, click here.

Today's story about Tom Philion's hiring of Stephanie Cordick as general manager of the Eastern Music Festival reminded me we should plan to do an editorial on Phillion soon.

He turned EMF around after arriving in 2000, adding more eclectic programming to the schedule and building audience and community interest.

He was a gently aggressive marketer and maintained EMF's artistic integrity while solidifying its fiscal integrity.

I can't blame him for being excited about his new gig as president of the Seattle Symphony.

But he'll be missed. On his watch, EMF became less of an elegant curiosity and something for more of us to go to and enjoy.

Another notable mover who is moving on is Ray Gibbs, president of Downtown Greensboro Inc., whose tenure has seen unprecedented growth in the center city, as a cultural, entertainment and residential district.

Since Gibbs arrived in 1999, about $250 million in projects have been completed or are under construction downtown.

The center city -- which truly used to be a place to get away from it all -- has added 50 restaurants and entertainment venues, and more than 275 residential units, with 285 more under construction on Gibbs' watch.

Ray may in some ways have benefited from being in the right place at the right time, but he has been a tireless booster and advocate for downtown who has help enable any number of projects, often behind the scenes.

And who has helped to create a cohesive vision for what downtown can and should be.

Beginning on June 1, Ray will join a Mooresvile engineering firm. He should feel good about his role here in helping engineer downtown's comeback.

Barack Obama responds to the video parody, "Barack the Magic Negro."

Is it political commentary or is it offensive?

I'd say it's a little of both. (Truth be told, depending on its context, "Negro" can be just as objectionable as that other N-word.

But it makes a point

Being Matt means sometimes having to say you're sorry.

Which Greensboro Coliseum Managing Director Matt Brown did last week, in a written mea culpa to Mayor Keith Holliday and City Councilman Tom Phillips.

Brown characterized the two men's comments about the proposed city purchase of the old Canada Dry building as “sensational” and their inferences about the deal as “outrageous and appalling.”

As he is wont to do from time to time, Brown said something he oughtn't to have, prompting a steamed Phillips to suggest that Brown should resign. Or be fired.

That isn't going to happen. But Brown's passion boils over so often that he finds himself in hot water.

As mad as he still was Friday afternoon, Phillips conceded that Brown probably isn't going anywhere. But he questioned whether any other city admininstrator would get away with such remarks.

"That includes the city manager," he said.

This is Brown's second written apology to the council. Former City Manager Ed Kitchen orderd him to apologize after the criticized the council in 1999 over its refusal at the time to sell naming rights to War Memorial Auditorium.

Brown called the council "short-sighted."

Brown, who is not a shrinking violet, has survived where others may have crashed and burned because he's so good at what he does.

Sort of like Dennis Rodman in his heyday with the Bulls (sans the wedding gown, of course)..

Most who attended seem to agree: The One Guilford leadership symposium Wednesday at High Point University was a worthwhile investment of time, even on a gorgeous spring morning.

Approximately 225 of you attended, and judging from the written questions from the audience, you were engaged and eager to get involved.

Some of the headlines, as I saw them:

1. Greensboro and High Point still have trust issues.
2. African American males are in crisis in Guilford County, in the classroom and in the criminal justice system.
3. The county still faces major challenges in job growth and average pay.
4. The county shouldn't merge every service or agency in sight -- bigger isn't always better -- but Guilford leaders ought to consider consolidation where it makes practical sense and saves time and money.
5. Foremost, the county needs to agree on a shared vision about where it wants to go and what it wants to be.

Among the observations that stood out:
1. John Alexander, president and CEO of the Center for Creative Leadership: Neither the panel nor the session dealt very much with a front-burner challenge and opportunity: immigration. (Concincidentally, Census figures released on the same day reveal a surge in the Hispanic population in North Carolina.)
2. Keynote speaker Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest and Braniff Airlines: We don't need to duplicate what, say, Charlotte or Raleigh are doing. We can borrow a page from Southwest's book and stake our own unique claim to what we want to be.
3. Anonymous audience member: Guilford County's vision ought to be to have best public schools in the country.
4. High Point Regional Health System CEO Jeff Miller: His hospital and Moses Cone still talk and work together despite their dispute over Cone's planned expansion into North High Point.
5. High Point Mayor Becky Smothers: She's all for a unified vision as long as it is a Guilford County vision and not "a Greensboro vision."
6. John Alexander: One way we can build better trust is to hear and understand one another's stories.
7. Al Barnett of Scott and Stringfellow Inc.:Young people are turned off by local government for an obvious reason -- the behavior of some elected leaders. For instance, a friend of his says watchingh only a few minutes of county commissioner meetings makes her head hurt.
8, Former Greensboro City Manager Ed Kitchen, now with the Bryan Foundation: The county has outgrown the traditional model of government in a number of respects. Services such as water and sewer need to be handled regionally.

High Point University and its president, Nido Qubein, were superb hosts, who do everything first-class.

The key now is effective follow-up. There has to be a next time, ideally in Greensboro, and it ought to focus on vision.

If you happen to have a big enough facility out there and you're willing to host the next One Guilford symposium, let us know.

Some links to other reactions:
Ed Cone
Sue Polinsky
Jeff Thigpen
David Hoggard

By now you probably have read today's story about High Point Mayor Becky Smothers' battle against an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Becky talks about her cancer as she does everything else: straight, honest, matter-of-fact. It is what it is.

By the way, she made certain this week to schedule her chemotherapy around her participation on the One Guilford panel.

She always has impressed me with her blunt but refreshing candor. Whenever I've heard her speak, she tends to cut through the platitudes and get to the substance.

She did that at One Guilford Wednesday.

Some thought she might have been a little too direct as a panelist. I thought she was perfect and helped move us from observations about how wonderful Guilford County is to the work we have to do and the attitudes that have to change to move us forward.

She is a fine leader and a consistent champion of regionalism. She also is a proud High Pointer.
Those qualities aren't mutually exclusive.

My prayers are with her.

An update: The mayor has received so many phone calls from well wishers that city officials have asked that people please stop phoning.

Something I've noticed as I take English Street en route to my mother's house:

The lighted sign in front of Garden of Prayer Church has been missing a small fragment of glass for years now.

And it still lists as the pastor the Rev. Michael King.

This week's column is part of a special package on regionalism.

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.
-- Henry Ford

Long before the Carolina Panthers were even a twinkle in Jerry Richardson's eye, pro football could have come to the Triad.

Really.

Back in 1960, when Richardson, the Panthers' owner, was still catching passes for the Baltimore Colts, a Greensboro businessman began plotting a Hail Mary toss of his own: an NFL team, a 60,000-seat stadium on the Forsyth-Guilford line and a NASCAR oval with a 60,000-seat grandstand.

As Tom Ward envisioned them, the stadium and track would have been located in Kernersville and jointly financed by the two counties through bonds.

Of course, in those days neither pro football nor racin’ was the mega attraction each became over the next four decades.

But imagine what might be today if the idea had taken root.

Charlotte who?

"We missed it but we came close," says Jim Melvin, the former Greensboro mayor who serves now as president of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation. "We could have had the Panthers' stadium and NASCAR.

"That would have been an anchor for the region."

Melvin says it was not that long a reach, either. "The NFL was still in its formative stages."

It was one of the most visionary and daring attempts at regionalism in the Triad's history. And it might well have succeeded.

One concern about One Guilford as we move forward toward a sequel:

We need to consider ways to attract a more diverse array of leaders. Sue mentioned this in her assessment and Mac Sims of the East Market Street Development Corp. (who did attend) expressed the same sentiments in a conversation Friday. Mac hoped that black leaders in particular would see the need to be part of such an important conversation as it continues in the coming months. So should Hispanic leaders and representatives of other races, groups and ethniciities.

Guilford County speaks more than 100 languages. They weren't as well represented at the symposium as they can and should be.

We worked from an extremely exhaustive and diverse invitaiton list. But it obviously wasn't enough. We'll try harder.

A perennial Guilford school board gadfly, Joe Stafford, continues his crusade to name new schools for people and not places or compass points this week.

Stafford's latest effort is to name an elementary school for Ron McNair, the astronaut and N.C. A&T graduate who died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

A plus for that idea: McNair certainly exemplified qualities students should aspire to: scholarship, courage, determination, mastery of math and science.

A minus: McNair already has a building named for him at A&T.

The new school, in the Reedy Fork development off U.S. 29 North, is sited on land donated by the Starmount Co. Starmount and the school project team want to name it ... Reedy Fork.

Stafford and others plan to lobby for the McNair name at Thursday's school board meeting, Stafford said by phone Monday night.

Stafford also said he has not given up on having a high school named for legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow. His attempt to christen the new Northern High School for Murrow, a Guilford County native, was rebuffed.

There'll be another high school, Stafford said. He'll try again.

Dennis Rogers of the News & Observer chronicles the ongoing struggles of an Iraq-based soldier's wife to close his Capital One credit card account.

The barbarians in the commercials are supposed to represent what happens to people without Capital One cards.

Based on this story, you've got to wonder.

Word that more than one hotel has expressed interest in the Canada Dry property near the Greensboro Coliseum raises an obvious question: If private developers are willing to purchase the property, why does the city need to bid for it?

There would be a case for the taxpayers footing the bill -- in the interest of sparking revitalization on High Point Road -- if no other options existed. They apparently do.

One even offered to incorporate an ACC Hall of Champions as part of its proposal.

City Council member T. Dianne Bellamy-Small not only faces a recall election on Aug. 21; she also faces a challenger

Tonya Clinkscale, a self-employed mother who has been involved in anti-gang efforts in the Warnersville community, said this week she will run for Bellamy-Small's District 1 seat.

Clinkscale said in a telephone interview she isn't so much running against Bellamy-Small as she is running for the council.

She also stressed that she is in no way connected to the recall effort.

Meanwhile, given recent developments, I wonder if Bellamy-Small can be beaten. Thanks to fellow council member Florence Gatten and the recall effort, she may yet survive. Consider these dynamics:

1. Gatten, who is white, upset a lot of people in the predominantly black district by calling for Bellamy-Small's resignation and by labeling her as a "rogue" council member. Even voters who are not especially fond of Bellamy-Small say they'll vote for her as a message to Gatten that she ought to mind her own business and leave District 1 matters to District 1 residents.

2. The face of the recall vote is a white man, Jonathan Wagstaff, who does not live in the district.

3. If Bellamy-Small did indeed leak a confidential police report to black clergy and other leaders, as many believe, they may feel an obligation to repay that favor.

4. Rightly or wrongly, some black leaders see the Bellamy-Small saga as connected to broader issues such as Truth and Reconciliation and Warnersville community residents' ongoing debate with Greensboro College over an planned athletic complex in their neighborhood.

If Gatten hadn't self-righteously wagged her finger and the recall campaign hadn't happened, I believe Bellamy-Small would have been ousted anyway.

She would have lost to Luther Falls, who almost beat her two years ago. Now, Falls isn't even sure he'll run.

And Gatten, a political consultant, may wind up unwittingly being Bellamy-Small's honorary campaign chairwoman.

This week's column:

Two years ago, N.C. A&T's Board of Trustees giddily christened a new classroom building with the name of the university's then-sitting chancellor, James C. Renick.

Last week that same board abruptly unnamed the yet-to-be-completed structure, citing a violation of policy in its earlier decision.

Yeah, right.

At the time, the sign in front of the building's steel-girder framework off Benbow Road still called it the "James C. Renick School of Education Building." A day later, someone had neatly taped over that phrase, as if censoring a string of cuss words or graffiti.

It was a sad, nasty turn in the slow unraveling of Renick's legacy.

And it was neither productive nor necessary.

"This was about personal politics, in my opinion," Steve Watson, a trustee who opposed the removal of Renick's name, said in a telephone interview last week from his Washington office. "I started hearing rumblings a few months ago."

This was the second debate of the naming issue, Watson said. The topic was tabled after the trustees had deadlocked during a previous discussion. But it obviously didn't go away.

By nearly all accounts, Renick had been considered a local hero when he left for a new job as a senior vice president at the American Council on Education in Washington.

Enrollment was booming at A&T. So was construction, with new brick-and-glass buildings sprouting like weeds. Plans were moving forward for a joint research campus with UNCG.
Among Aggie undergraduates, Renick was almost universally admired. Some students openly wept at the news he was leaving.

But in hindsight, Renick, whose energy and personality were magnetic, wasn't very good at sweating the small stuff.

A&T's interim chancellor, Lloyd V. Hackley, hadn't been on the job very long before he began "smelling some smoke." Behind the shiny veneer of A&T's new buildings and new attitude were serious fissures in the school's academic and administrative infrastructure.

• A former A&T vice chancellor was charged with embezzlement and obtaining property by false pretense.

• The nursing program struggled with high failure rates.

• Roughly one in four A&T undergraduates was on academic probation or suspension during the spring semester of 2007.

• The school's books were in enough disarray that a team from the UNC General Administration came to Greensboro to help untangle them.

"Most of the problems at the campus center around lack of internal control, lack of proper systems, lack of IT functionality, financial irregularities and the lack of control at its foundation," UNC system President Erskine Bowles told the Board of Governors in January.

As for Hackley, he said he had no involvement in the building-name discussion.
"As strange as it may appear," he said, "I try to stay out of that."

Hackley did however, cite "a lack of leadership powerful enough to hold this institution together," as the root of A&T's current problems.

He wouldn't elaborate, but his meaning was clear. Renick's imperfections have become more glaring with time.

With each new sliver of information, the stories about that mysterious downtown development that might happen in Greensboro are becoming more specific and more tantalizing.

The latest:

A Greensboro developer is involved, but he would use outside companies.

Possible sites include the Bellemeade Village land and part of the News & Record's property nearest the Depot.

The wait for an outcome for this still very speculative project (which would be the largest ever downtown) is excruciating. But the potential payoff is well worth the suspense.

Demolition crews will blow up the old Charlotte Coliseum this week.

May it rest in pieces.

It's hard to be sentimental about the building, which had little character and played a distant second (third or fourth) fiddle to the Greensboro Coliseum as a basketball and entertainment arena.

I attended a pair of ACC tournaments there and was underwhelmed.

Two at least lukewarm memory about the building: It recalls the old Charlotte Hornets of Larry Johnson, Muggsy Bogues and Alonzo Mourning, who connected with fans in a way the Bobcats clearly have not.

And it recalls the big splash the News & Record did on the new Charlotte Coliseum for a Sunday features front. The spread, which included a prominent photo of the Charlotte scoreboard, was part of a section of the paper that is printed ahead of time, on Friday mornings.

Problem was, the scoreboard crashed to the floor that Friday, forcing us to run an editor's note explaining why the scorebard still appeared intact in Sunday's paper.

Michelle Jarboe reports today on Four Seasons Town Center's efforts to burnish its image with new stores and a stronger community focus, including a partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

The mall also has increased its security force.

The initiative follows shootings over the last year at the mall that cast a shadow over it as unsafe.

My experience does not bear that out. The mall appears to me any less safe or safer than other shopping venues in town. But it is a teen magnet, which is a turn-off to some shoppers. (Heck, I don't care; it is the mall.)

That said, Four Seasons has lost its luster to the open-air shopping centers that are back in vogue and have attracted more buzz and more upscale stores.

These things are cyclical. The tide probably will turn again.

On another note: All of these new, village-style centers have gone wacky-crazy with their Disneyesque design featuring spires and turrets.

The look strikes me as contrived, overdone and tacky. Somebody make them stop.