Austrian City Banishes Governator
Published
Making good on a request from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, officials in his birthplace city of Graz, Austria, have removed the Schwarzenegger name from the soccer stadium.
In Austria, capital punishment is illegal. Citizens of Graz demanded that Schwarzenegger's name be stripped from the stadium in response to his political decision to not grant clemency to Stanley "Tookie" Williams earlier this month.
Beating them to the punch, Schwarzenegger sent off a letter asking his name to be removed from the Liebenauer Stadium, "in order to spare the responsible politicians of the City of Graz further concern."
But then the city officials took it a step further and removed all references to the Governator from the city's official Web site.
Schwarzenegger aslo sent back the city's ring of honor saying, "It was a beautiful day in 1999 when I received the ring at City Hall and I assumed at the time that it would be a token of sincere friendship between my hometown and me. Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail."
But no lasting hard feelings were felt by the Governor. He concluded in his statement, "I would like to once more expressly emphasize that I will remain with all my heart a Grazer, a Steierer and an Austrian. I look forward to visiting Graz again as soon as time allows."
That is, of course, if they'll still have him.