Sister June called from Virginia last week to say she read last Sunday's column and thought the photo was much better than the last City Ink photo but that she didn't really understand the political stuff that much. She said I should write more about Ernie and the dogs.

Big sisters are like that, no matter how old they get to be. Just chock full of opinions and advice.

But I haven't paid her much mind since she told me George Washington's head was stored in a box in a building on Fourth Street in Tifton and I found out she made it up.

I don't make my stuff up, by the way.

With Augusta politics, you don't have to.

SHELL GAME: Whoever came up with the idea to funnel an additional $300,000 a year to Laney-Walker/Bethlehem revitalization as the price for getting the TEE Center going must have wanted to kill the goose that was all set to lay a $750,000 golden egg in that part of the city for the next 50 years.

The latest proposal calling for $300,000 a year more from beer and wine taxes -- money that now goes to the money pit known as the Coliseum Authority -- has given commissioners, black and white, the excuse they need to scrap the TEE Center at the proposed site on Reynolds Street.

Along with that will go the $750,000-a-year deal Commissioners Don Grantham and Betty Beard hatched in exchange for her vote to move forward with the TEE Center two years ago.

Some commissioners are taking aim at the goose, better known as the $1-a-night room tax, saying she needs to go.

"I think we should start all over," Commissioner Jerry Brigham said.

"It's time to get rid of the bed tax. I think we are tired. It's drug out too long. We tried to be cooperative on Laney-Walker. They don't want to be cooperative on anything."

Commissioner Joe Bowles also thinks the goose has had to sit too long.

"We had an original compromise on the table, agreed on, and it wasn't honored," he said. "I'm not interested in giving them any more money. Maybe we don't need to do it there, and we can do away with the Laney-Walker redevelopment."

Not there? Then where? Say at city property at the Depot on Reynolds Street where the Watermark met its Waterloo?

Truth be known, all commissioners would like to have some of that $750,000 a year to feather nests in their own districts.

BETTY'S FUTURE: I talked to Ms. Beard on Friday, and she said she's not planning to run for her District 1 seat in this fall's election, which The Chronicle went ahead and reported.

"I just think it's time to let it go," she said. "I need a rest. I've had disappointments, but that's life. We've also accomplished a lot."

And in this corner waits William Fennoy , who has already filed an intent to accept campaign donations for a possible run in District 1.

But we won't know for sure until qualifying, which begins Aug. 31.

Mr. Fennoy, you no doubt remember, took on citizen activist Woody Merry in a rasslin' match at a Coliseum Authority meeting and later in court last year, getting the best of Mr. Merry on both occasions.

Commissioner Calvin Holland has two potential challengers for his District 5 seat.

Former Commissioner Bobby Hankerson has filed an intent card. Mr. Holland beat Mr. Hankerson by 11 votes in the 2005 election, not the 1995 election as I reported last week. I hate it when that happens.

William "Bill" Lockett , who describes himself as a community activist, also has filed an intent card to accept donations for the District 5 seat.

District 3 Commissioner Mr. Bowles, District 7 Commissioner Mr. Brigham and Super District 9 Commissioner Johnny Hatney have so far not drawn potential opposition.

Rumors that former Commissioner Tommy Boyles might run for his old seat are mostly just that.

Mr. Boyles said he hadn't put much thought into running, though he's had a lot of calls about it.

"Kathy would kill me," he said.

I guess everybody knows Kathy is his wife.

Alshia Leverett has filed for the District 5 Board of Elections seat. Marshal Steve Smith also has filed an intent card.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR BECAUSE YOU PROBABLY WON'T GET IT: Goshen neighborhood spokeswoman Becky Shealy got a little taste of what reporters at The Chronicle go through trying to get public information when she asked repeatedly for a copy of the city's stimulus grant application that was sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In her case, she was not referred to the city attorney, the usual drill designed to chill. She was just stonewalled by a bureaucrat in the housing department.

Mrs. Shealy finally had to go before commissioners last week and ask for a copy of the application that was sent to HUD with a request for $21 million for a project in Goshen the folks out there don't want.

Before Chester Wheeler came on board as the housing and economic development director, the department had an active oversight board known as the Citizens Advisory Committee, a knowledgeable, hard-working group of volunteers who reviewed applications for grants in the housing department and made recommendations to the staff.

But Mr. Wheeler didn't want any oversight and finally got the board inactivated.

Now I'll bet he wishes he'd had some before he mailed that application.

He could blame them.

One of the Citizen Advisory Committee members who knows all about what happened to it after Mr. Wheeler arrived is Metro Courier publisher Barbara Gordon , a committee member.

"It comes as absolutely no surprise to me they're in the mess they're in," she said.

BAN THE BOOKBAGS, BUT NOT THE BOOKS: Richmond County school board member Venus Cain wants to ban book bags and backpacks from high school football games unless they've been searched, and she made a motion to that effect at last week's board meeting.

It's a safety issue, she said.

Board President Marion Barnes called on attorney Pete Fletcher for an opinion, and Mr. Fletcher said there were a lot of legal issues that would have to go into such a policy.

"It's not just a simple thing," he said, mentioning several thorny issues such as who would do the searching and what they would do if they found something illegal.

Trustee Frank Dolan then said they'd have to grab girls' pocketbooks too.

"There's a difference between pocketbooks and bookbags," Mrs. Cain said.

"I know, they both hold stuff," Mr. Dolan said. "I know that. I knew that."

The board tabled Mrs. Cain's motion until Mr. Fletcher can research the issue.

He could just consult Superintendent Dana Bedden, whose doctoral dissertation is on student searches and seizures.

SAFER NOW: The school board also hired Patrick Clayton as director of school safety and Richard Roundtree as lieutenant of school safety.

Mr. Clayton is a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and Mr. Roundtree was a Richmond County sheriff's investigator.

Mr. Roundtree, you will recall, was the victim last year of a computer hacker who called herself "Grateful Mother" and illegally accessed his account with The Augusta Chronicle, posting 24 online messages praising him beneath stories critical of him for moving off and leaving seven murder case files, a gun, ammunition and SWAT gear in an apartment.

That fool woman even followed him to the FBI academy in Quantico, Va., and posted from there.

She should have been punished to the fullest extent of the law for slipping into Mr. Roundtree's office and using his laptop to post such things as "It's no secrete (sic) that I am a Roundtree supporter because he was the one who solved my son's murder ...."

Grateful Mother wasn't the best speller in the world, and I'm convinced it was an inside job. Sheriff Ronnie Strength could have solved that case if he'd given everybody in the sheriff's department a spelling test, and those who misspelled the same words as Grateful Mother should have been arrested for impersonating an officer.

THE REAL MCCOY: Since I've been back, many people have asked about Ernie and his famous foot, so I guess we're overdue for an update.

I'm happy to report his foot finally healed, and he's back doing the yard work.

He'll never be the same, though. After a hard day on his feet, he does a real fine, unintended impersonation of Walter Brennan.

Everybody thinks Ernie's funny. And he is.

A few years ago, he was in the kitchen staring at the refrigerator when he had what he called an epiphany.

"Fri-gi-daire. Frigid air. Fri-gi-daire. Fri'gid air," he said. "Frigid air! Frigid air!"

He said all the blood left his head, and he had to grab hold of the counter to keep from falling on the floor.

"All my life I just thought of Fri-gi-daire as another name for any refrigerator," he said.

So now, when he has an epiphany, he calls it a "Frigidaire Moment."

He's always calling to say he's had one, and when I say, "Uh," he says, "I just thought I'd share that with you," and hangs up.