Temptation Was Irresistible
The mayor did it again this week. Mr. Silbiger has been pumping for a youth advisory commission since he came to City Hall a little more than four years ago. To be coldly candid, I don’t know of anyone else who wants one. I don’t think he does, either. After four years on the dais, an instinct must send a signal that it is time to fold. Move on. It is over. At City Council meetings, during the discussion of an agenda item, the mayor traditionally speaks last. At last Monday’s meeting, Scott Malsin, Carol Gross, Alan Corlin and Steve Rose said, virtually in unison, “Trying to organize a Youth Advisory Council is a bad idea. First, there already is a similar group. Second, no teenagers come to City Council meetings. Ever. It is not what 16-year-olds do for kicks.” Mr. Silbiger read those sobering remarks to mean the opposite of their traditional definitions. The mayor’s comments turned the words of the others upside down. The fact that no teenagers are in the audience, Mr. Silbiger said, shows there is an even greater reason to organize a youth commission. The fact that no one shows up at your farewell party does not mean that everybody loves you, that the invited guests just missed their bus connections. It means they don’t care.
Looking Backward
When I was 16 years old, I lived in a town governed by a City Commission. I never was tempted to observe a meeting from a more intimate distance than my bedroom at home. With the echoes of his colleagues’ disagreement still hanging in the air in Council Chambers, Mr. Silbiger confounded logic last Monday by suggesting a substitute motion to forge a youth commission anyway. His vision did not include any ground rules or any particular shape. Eh, what? For what must be the 50th time, a substitute motion by Mr. Silbiger failed to attract a second. You are the mayor, sir. Being a leader does not include pushing the carcass of a dead horse across the finish line — week after week — when the other four Council members are pushing the dead horse the other way. Like teenage smoking, this kind of hollow advocacy tends to stunt growth.
This Is Not Progress
After Mr. Silbiger had been elected to his second term in April, I wrote an essay scolding the rest of the City Council for not showing sufficient public respect toward Mr. Silbiger throughout his first term. But the case for such criticism weakens when the mayor insists on clinging to hopeless causes. In the light of Monday night, I understand why he has difficulty rounding up support for many of his ideas. Routinely, I believe, Mr. Silbiger’s stands have been closer to Custer than they have to principle. Monday night was not about principle. When your home is burning down, you don’t ignore the blazes and refuse to budge from the dining room because you were sure the house was fireproof. Unless Mr. Silbiger abandons his inflexibly stubborn positions in every hopeless situation, the next 45 months may feel like a lifetime.
