The most closely watched portion of tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council meeting is expected to emerge at the sleepy end of the evening, after members have spent hours roasting and toasting the prospective city budget for the new fiscal year.
The advertised main event of the first full meeting of the new City Council majority likely will be merely the warmup.
Only after the slim agenda is out of the way will Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger or new Councilman Chris Armenta be legally free to re-introduce the most toxic subject to confront the Council in recent months:
A controversial development.
It was well after midnight at last week’s supposedly ceremonial Council meeting when Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger resurrected the presumably settled issue of the proposed Entrada Office Tower, adjacent to the Radisson Hotel.
Assenting votes from three of the five members are required to re-open a discussion.
It is not at all clear whether this new progressive faction will prevail.
Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger are motivated by a conviction that the will of a lopsided proportion of the community was denied on Tuesday, April 15, when the massive 190-foot structure was approved by the now term-limited Council majority.
The Voter to Watch
New Councilman Mehaul O’Leary probably will be the man in the middle this evening, the classic swing voter, facing veteran-type pressure in only his second meeting.
He told the newspaper this morning he could not disclose whether he would support bringing Entrada back or keeping it buried.
This much is known: Mr. O’Leary was not thrilled that the Armenta-Silbiger axis extended the debut meeting until nearly 1:30 in the morning when only commission appointments were on the agenda.
Worn out from a long day of buildup and celebration, and anticipating one more party with family and friends before calling it a day, he was ready to depart Council Chambers after the unusually long ritual of commission appointments.
Was It Necessary?
Then the Entrada bomb was dropped.
“We got into issues that could have waited,” Mr. O’Leary said.
“I wish the final part of the evening had not happened. Besides, I needed more information.”
In anticipation of the Entrada Office Tower being brought up during the Council members’ comment period, Mr. O’Leary would not give a hint of which way he is leaning.
“I want to hear what the other guys have to say,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr. O’Leary remains as full of vinegar and enthusiasm, but also is as modest as he was during the recent campaign.
“I am in the learning process,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do.”
