Bishop earns public-private thanks

Richard Bishop has been a familiar figure around Columbus for years now. He will no doubt remain a familiar figure in the years to come — just not in as public a role as the ones he’s taken on to serve this community for so long.

The latest of those services, and his current post, is as president of Uptown Columbus Inc. and the Business Improvement District (BID), a post he’s held for more than 10 years. It’s a position from which he recently announced his retirement effective not quite a year from now.

“I have been in this job a lot of years,” Bishop told the Ledger-Enquirer’s Chuck Williams, “and at my age it is time to do something different. This is a good time to turn it over to someone else.”

That someone, whoever ends up succeeding Bishop, takes on a job for which the consensus is that his predecessor has set the bar pretty high.

But management of the Uptown/BID nonprofit is just one of many realms of service for Bishop. He was the city’s Parks and Recreation director — a position he had formerly held in Eufaula and Phenix City — before being named, along with Isaiah Hugley, deputy city manager to then City Manager Carmen Cavezza. The late and much beloved Red McDaniel, who by the time of his death in 2014 had been on Columbus Council longer than many Columbus adults had been alive, once called Bishop a “genius” for his problem-solving abilities.

Mat Swift, president of W.C. Bradley Co. real estate division, noted Bishop’s “incredible attention to detail” and his “Monday through Sunday” work ethic. BID Chairman Chris Losonsky said Bishop deserves considerable credit for the central city business boom: “He helped take it to what it is now — the place to go.”

The most helpful leg up the next Uptown/BID president will have is the chance to work with the guy doing the job now.

Seriously?

In this election year, there are plenty of strong contenders for the First Amendment Abuse Award. But Miami TV host Kalyn Chapman James, who called the murderer of five Dallas police officers a “martyr,” might have just clinched it.

After the inevitable firestorm (go figure) James told CNN that “people latched on to one word.”

OK …

“I think more than anything I’m dealing with a bit of guilt because I don’t feel sad for the officers that lost their lives. And I know that’s really not my heart — I value human life and I want to feel sad for them — but I can’t help but feeling like the shooter was a martyr.”

There. That’s more than one word. Talk about doubling down on stupid and outrageous.

The station, a PBS affiliate (no political ramifications there), suspended her indefinitely with the usual watery oatmeal disclaimer that didn’t forget to include the term “independent contractor.” That shouldn’t satisfy anybody.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Bishop earns public-private thanks."