NOT WITH A BANG, BUT WITH A REALLY LONG WHIMPER
That’s how Monday night’s City-County Council and four years of Democratic Control came to an end. It wasn’t short by any means. The meeting started at 7 p.m. and finished shortly before midnight. Measures to start a process to repeal the public safety tax, have the council approve tax abatements, tie the unionization of hotel workers to a $48 million city financing plan for the new Marriott all failed for lack of votes. Only 12 Democrats showed up for the last meeting and one Republican was absent.
The more interesting moments weren’t what happened, but how they occurred. For example, Councilors got deadlocked over an ordinance that would have included more than $400,000 in missed pay for several hundred Marion County Sheriff’s Deputies. Democrats Ron Gibson and Paul Bateman changed their votes to allow the measure to pass.
Council Attorney Aaron Haith and outgoing Minority leader Phil Borst won’t miss each other after some testy exchanges over parliamentary procedure. Republican Mike Speedy decided to shoot for a lot more face time by commenting more Monday night than I have ever seen him do so in the three years that I’ve been watching the body.
By the time it was all said and done, nearly five hours had gone by and a lot of people were tired and ready to bolt. I was one of them. There is an old saying that the two things you don’t want to see made are laws and sausage. As a Muslim, I’m not supposed to eat pork, but a couple patties sound really good now
December 18th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I will truely miss having Dr Borst on our CC. I know him to be a very kind gentleman, and an asset to his proffession. He tried his best to keep the domoRATS in line. I wish him well in his endevers.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
In my previous post, I omitted mentioning my feelings about Aaron Haith. That’s because I was taught, that if I couldn’t say anything nice about somebody, say nothing at all
December 18th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Mr. Haith better concern himself with defending himself against disbarrment.
I *assume* (yes, I know – ass-u-me) Bob Elrod will become the Counsel to the Council next month.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Dr. Borst, thank you for your service to our city. You will be missed.