During the 3 months that the majority new City Council has been in office, one of the holdovers, Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger, consistently has turned the closing minutes into the most entertaining portion of the meeting.
First-year Councilman Mehaul O’Leary probably has been the most outspoken voice on the dais. He criticized Mr. Silbiger for his so-called harangues at the end of meetings and that he belabors certain subjects. Make your points and move on, was Mr. O’Leary’s attitude.
Mr. Silbiger was upset last night for at least 3 reasons:
• He was miffed that the evening was ending so early (9:30) when there was so much business — too much of it backlogged, in his opinion — to transact. He called out city staff for not properly managing the agenda, contending that some Mondays the agenda groans from overload and other times, such as last night, the skinny agenda scarcely warranted a meeting. He suggested there should be at least enough business to keep the to City Council in session until 11 o’clock. As has become customary, Mr. Silbiger did not receive support from his colleagues.
• He told colleagues that he was having a problem with City Manager Jerry Fulwood, and he wanted to resolve it as swiftly, and privately, as possible. He asked for a formal closed session to air out the friction.
• For the second or third time, Mr. Silbiger asked his colleagues to validate his request to move up Mr. Fulwood’s annual performance evaluation by at least half a year. As with his other requests, this, too, was denied.
Mr. Fulwood is in the final year of his contract, which expires next June.
Why It Happens
A woman who is close to the City Council sought to explain why so few of Mr. Silbiger’s petitions are granted by his teammates, especially those that are reasonably by even tough standards.
“Gary makes good points at least occasionally,” she told the newspaper. “But he makes it so difficult to sign onto him because of his style, because of the way he says and does things.
“Take his point last night about a personnel evaluation. His point was, ‘I have a problem with Jerry. I can’t talk about it publicly. I would like to have an opportunity to talk with Jerry and the rest of the Council about the problem I am having in Closed Session. Maybe when you hear what it is, you will agree with me.’ He did not use those exact words. But that is how I took it.
“i don’t think that is an unreasonable request. The problem with him, though, is that it is only going to lead to something else. It’s not just a Jerry issue. It’s never a single topic. It’s always ‘Let’s revisit again the issue of how we get things on the agenda, whether it should take one vote, 2 votes or 3 votes.’
“There are times when 1 or 2 people, you can see, really want to agree with him. But they are reluctant to do so. They feel it only is going to ‘feed’ him.”
