Well, that is what Mitch Harper said last night at city council. “Government is the problem.” Government, however, is not the problem, instead it is those who either do not know the rules or who do not bother to play by them. Ignoramuses or cheaters. Mitch was ticked when he condemned all government. He was angry, so he was abrupt, perhaps a bit too abrupt. I think what he meant to say was that certain members of city council simply have no idea of Robert’s Rules of Order and, consequently, cause meetings to resemble a replay of a keystone cops skit. The resulting confusion, according to Mitch, makes council look stupid and inept. The rambling cacophonies waste time, cause the public to “dial out,” and hinders progress.
Last night at council Karen Goldner giggled about her ignorance. She asked about which point of order it was where she could interrupt the process. A vote had been called, but she wanted to make a point and didn’t know how to properly introduce her point. She giggled. She admitted ignorance to the rules and interrupted anyway, with a smile and a laugh. She was simply out-of-order and President Smith should have so stated. She is supposed to understand the basics of her job as a councilwoman, but she does not, so she often interrupts the flow of business.
So, Mitch got ticked, pissed, and angry when a vote on a rezoning for a quicky mart on Fairfield got lost in conjecture and babble. Everyone at the table wanted to find a way to let the mart be built, but most also wanted to satisfy some neighborhood concerns. A series of ideas were tossed on the table one after another, no one quite sure whether law and rules would accommodate the suggestions. It was comic and sophomoric.
Harper finally exploded, which was nice to see, with rage at the confusion around him. Government is the problem, he exclaimed. He explained later that the quickie-mart business was being held up, the neighborhood concerns were not being resolved because amateurs at the council table, who style themselves city council members, could not arrive at a solution.
So, government is not the problem, rather it is some of the people who we elect to government who embarrass the may other government workers who put in a full day’s work each day. Karen Goldner, Tom Didier and Marty Bender are amateurs. John Shoaff, Tim Pape and Mitch Harper are clearly studied pros (compared to the rest at the table) concerning how to pull the levers of power. Tom Smith, council president, and Glynn Hines are in the middle. Hines is quick and shrewd, Smith is tough and calculating, but they do not use the rules as well as Harper, Pape and Shoaff, so they can not be counted on to win a vote even when they are clearly in the right. Smith as council president does not demand discipline at the table, so confusion trumps professionalism.
Council is like baseball or any other sport: if you know the rules you can win the close ones. Harper knows the rules, Shoaff knows the rules, so does Tim Pape. Unfortunately, council looks like T-ball at times.
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I stand corrected. I took a look at the city council tape from the other night and missed the point of Mitch Harper’s frustration: it was not his fellow councilmembers, but rather the cumbersome rules and regulations that confounded the discussion over the Fairfield Quickmart rezoning. I need to apologize to Mitch. At a number of points he tried to find a path to a resolution of what both developer and neighbors wanted, but plan commission rules seemed to thwart progress each time a potential solution was offered. So, I missed that. Mitch, who along with John Shoaff, are the most congenial and collegial of councilmembers, was simply not frustrated with his fellow council members, but rather with the cumbersome tangle of rules that stood in the way of that bit of progress and others.
I was cracked up by Bob S. standing in the wings raising his hand until the ‘it’s-just-common-sense’ councilman gave him the stinkeye.
I am typically pro-business and pro-development when it makes sense, but tuesday night the city made clear that the only standard they hold themselves to in terms of economic development is that something is better than nothing. We can replace planning services with a $0.50 ink pad and a rubber stamp.