In the old days, B.B. (Before Brown), when the Redevelopment Agency made City Council meetings throb with drama – routinely to a chorus of residential protestors – if the Council was not organized, it seemed to be.
They were so busy with tearing down buildings and putting up new ones that no one had time to catch his breath, let alone question whether the City Council was organized, aiming toward a single goal. They might not even have been reading from the same hymnal, let alone huddling on a common page.
Those days of yore were pleasantly busy. The Council reliably met every Monday evening at 7. In those rare months with five Mondays, the Council members, often casually attired, would saunter out into the community and hold court in a relievably informal environment.
The busy-ness and a hefty load of business, however, went away almost 4½ years ago when Gov. Brown forced all Redevelopment Agencies to disband.
A measure of ongoing disorder followed. Gone were every-Monday Council meetings. Banished were fifth-Monday Council meetings in the community. City Hall visionary business did not decline so much as it disappeared.
As a lifelong politician, as the senior member of the City Council, and as a bachelor, Jim Clarke prefers to be smoothly organized. Headed toward an agreed-upon goal. And for his colleagues to be in the same condition.
The Council should have a vision, says Mr. Clarke and a road map, or at least a GPS, to determine how to reach their destination.
City Manager John Nachbar and Mayor Mehaul O’Leary have signed up for his work plan, Mr. Clarke said. “John Nachbar said it would help him with his department heads because it would reflect a true priority list as opposed to not having a written-down list,” said Mr. Clarke.
Everybody is driving a separate car.
“Departments do a pretty good job on this,” he said. “But what they do is not connected. What Public Works might be doing on one issue may not have any connection to what Parks or Finance is doing.”
(To be continued)
