Thursday, July 31, 2008

Well, I'm back

Truthfully, I wasn't going to post here for a while because "the other side", or as we affectionately refer to them "the dark side", has become very adept at blogging and have been keeping me and my friends busy fighting off their scurrilous remarks on the local newspaper's blog site.

A lot has happened since I last posted and most of it hasn't been good.

The new Mayor has turned out to be a bigger nightmare than I thought.

My candidate for Mayor took a position with another City Agency and resigned from the Council, leaving us with a vacancy to fill ...more on that later...

One of our allies went over to "the dark side" and we can't seem to find out why, so this leaves (at present) the council deadlocked at 5-5 with the Mayor supporting "the dark side".

If there is anything positive it is that the replacement for my friend on the Council is an excellent alder person. He's bright. He's progressive. He's creative and has a natural curiosity that will serve him well on the council. My friends and I were able to get him elected as a replacement and we drew a ton of heat for it, but I think the Citizens of his ward are well-served by this individual.

Personally, I think the new guy is Mayor material.

The new Mayor seems to think his job is to protect the City Staff. Almost all his actions point to making the City Staff comfortable, and, he seems to be constantly talking in "bullet points" which I think may be coming directly from the City Administrator's office.

I don't think there's any doubt about it. With a Cabal of four friendly votes, the Administrator and the Mayor are holding the Citizens of the City hostage to the whims and wishes of an unelected, unaccountable despot.

I remember saying when I was first elected that the situation was even worse than I had imagined and there was a need for "fundamental change" in the way the city does business. It has only become worse and we need to keep putting the pressure on. The only thing that bothers me is that while I get nothing but "attaboys" from my constituents, nobody is willing to march on City Hall with the proverbial pitchforks and torches that it will take to make things change.

I feel like I'm tilting at windmills...............again.