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A week after we enthusiastically commended the three new members of the City Council for exceeding expectations, at least two of them did not fall off their lofty pedestal last night. They leaped, hoping, I presume, no one would notice.
Candor suffered a knockout in the first round of the Council meeting. A guy shopping for honesty would have starved to death.
Come on, boys.
I probably should have gone home and watched the test-pattern on television. I am not sure whether I was in a beer bar down by the Wilmington docks or it was Saturday night at the rasslin’ matches, sitting among high-browed academics who breathe for a living.
An attractive woman was sitting near me. But she distracted me for another reason. She kept removing and re-donning her sandals, endlessly massaging her feet and ankles. I thought she had dropped a dime inside of one of them and was trying to retrieve it. Tiring of her feet long after I did, she started playing with her considerable hair. I went out to me car for blinders.
This crowd skipped school the day etiquette was taught. In the 1970s, I covered the Thursday night prizefights downtown at Aileen Eaton’s Olympic Auditorium, and those fans were better disciplined.
Civility Off on a Holiday
I can’t remember the last time I saw so many wonderful people dialed up to their capacity over a zero issue. The crowd felt like a clutch of hyper-partisans who had sneaked away from their spouses for the evening so they could act out fantasies. This was not the gang from the symphony, or anywhere else that shoes are required.
Our town has a few needs, but a so-called “local animal control officer” is a non-existent priority.
Last night was more feebly thought out than my first marriage. The residents were sincere enough. Sorry I cannot make the same claim for the Council. Maybe it is not too late to trade some of them in for the three grownups who were just term-limited.
It was an authentic horse race as to whether the prize for Worst Performance was more deserved by several boorish miscreants in the audience or on the dais. They could have switched places with no detectable difference.
Avoiding a Clear-Eyed Answer
It will be a cold day in Havana — where the sagacious 14-year-old Elian Gonzalez just joined the Communist Party — before I will believe that Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and Councilman Chris Armenta are serious about public notification.
When colleague Andy Weissman asked to postpone last night’s animal control officer discussion because of weak public notification, Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger could not give forthright responses. They could have argued “yes, but,” and not impugned their precious, breakable credibility.
My quirky Aunt Bertha used to say, “When all else fails, tell the truth.” But that could have scuttled the plan to slip this non-issue under the wire before the budget was approved. They likely would not have gotten it passed later when a budget amendment would be required, necessitating a four/fifths vote to free up funding.
Instead, the Vice Mayor and the Councilman blew smoke in the faces of their fellow Councilman. At least we know they won’t starve this week. There was a surfeit of baloney on the table.
