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Opinion
The city council was scheduled to meet in special session at 6 p.m. tonight to vote on overriding Mayor Robert Restaino’s budget vetoes. The meeting has been canceled.
The Mayor dictated his side of the story to the Gazette’s Rick Pfeiffer who reported last week that the budget changes the council implemented were illegal, both because they came from an illegal meeting and because the council was unclear about what it was cutting or from where.
The council meets behind closed doors to seek "legal advice" from Acting Corporation Counsel Thomas DeBoy in what the State Committee on Open Government views as a violation of the open meeting law.
Restaino met individually with every council member but Donta Myles to plead his case laying out his reasoning and apparently cutting deals to get his way.
The council initially was trying to shift funds to give itself a stronger voice and add some funding for the advancement of Beech Avenue park in the 4th District, the only district of the city to vote for Kamala Harris.
The mayor outflanked the council without even involving Myles.
The whole thing is yet again a case of never compromise and a broken city government where the coequal executive branch dominates the day and the mayor gets his way. It is a further example of the political degradation of our society.
Some people recognized it as starting in 2015 but the downward turn from working for the greater good began much sooner. I think with Rush Limbaugh who even preceded social media and the Internet. Limbaugh’s voice got louder when he had a more apt target in Bill Clinton.
Fox News came on the scene in 1996 and began partisan entertainment disguised as news. Then Mark Burnett propped up a failed businessman as a billionaire starting in 2004 when George W. Bush was in office. Clinton and his wife Hillary remained the targets.
Limbaugh limped on until Obama came into office and he had a new foil always taking every chance to beat up Michelle Obama. It doesn't matter if it is Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris. Hell hath no fury like the right wing disdain for strong women. Eventually, Burnett's brand, aided by the rise of social media, gave birth to Trump being elected in 2016 because many Republicans bought the lie.
That divisive attitude of "I am right, you are wrong" was fomented by Limbaugh, perfected by Trump and now it rots down to the local level where that lack of compromise is on display every two weeks.
We have two councilpersons in Traci Bax and David Zajac who never speak up about anything, Bax perhaps because of her husband’s police job and Zajac because it is not his nature. Myles speaks up about everything but seems to do limited research because he harbors a grudge over being fired for crossing the mayor.
Then we have Chairperson Jim Perry and councilperson Brian Archie who actually care and want to do the right thing. Perry tries to run a meeting but has trouble reining in Myles and the merry band of hecklers in the gallery. Archie speaks up coherently, when necessary.
There is an endless parade of podium crashers tilting at windmills because they have no other way to be heard and the executive branch not only conducts itself with arrogance but absence and no accountability. Occasionally, views are dictated to Pfeiffer. Once a week there is a Youtube update from the mayor as well.
Be careful how you speak of the mayor or you are likely to get trolled on social media by his son-in-law.
The vector we are on is untenable. The council is coequal, even with a strong mayor charter. There needs to be compromise, empathy and compassion.
As Perry wrote recently, “too many people have lost sight of the idea that working together is more often better than fighting against each other. The principle of compromise and negotiations has been replaced by an ‘I win, you lose’ philosophy. With a belief like that, the problem is more often, we all lose.”
I don't have all the answers. I seldom have any but all sides need to be better.
