Call Me Irresponsible

“Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right than to be responsible and wrong.”
– Winston Churchill, August 26, 1950

In remarks to City Council last week, Mayor Tony Mack took on “irresponsible bloggers,” for some reason blaming them (and in particular, Jim Carlucci, who happened to be present in the chamber during this harangue) for somehow leading Council astray in their duties. “As the blogger writes, so does Council go,” he said (in Part 3 of the 3-part video). What Mr. Mack thinks is “irresponsible” about blogging, he left unsaid, although he did seem to think that “hate and ventom” (whatever that might be) flows in a blogger’s heart.

Although I wasn’t in that chamber that evening, or most evenings lately (a busy day job, folks), I am proud to include myself in the company of those the mayor calls “irresponsible.” A blogger is just a citizen with a voice. I don’t know what problems the mayor has with that concept, except for the fact that Citizens With Voices tend to call the man and his colleagues out when we see bad behavior and bad decisions, of which there are many, many, many frequent examples in this town.

About one unnamed piece by one unnamed blogger, the mayor claims the blogger was “wrong on all fronts.” I wish I knew what piece he was talking about. I, for one, don’t claim infallibility. I link to sources for my statements, I don’t print rumors or unattributed stories often, and when I do I do label them as such. And when I do get things wrong, I say so, in print.

But overall I will say that, since the mayor raised the issue of “irresponsible bloggers,” I think I can claim to being more right than wrong on most of the big issues in this town during the current Administration.

At the risk of being considered immodest, here’s a review of some items that have come down the pike, from just 2010:

• July 29, 2010: I suggested that Acting Business Adminstrator (#1 !!) Willliam Guhl’s resignation after four weeks might not be a good thing for the new Administration: “[I]f Guhl left in resentment because his advice fell on deaf ears, that is very distressing and might well lead to a lack of confidence in this new administration at a time that couldn’t be worse for this town.” The Mayor thought it was a normal departure.
• August 5, 2010: I called the forcible removal from City Hall of Deputy Clerk Cordelia Staton a “show of force [that] was uncalled for, excessive, brutal, thuggish and likely illegal.” Mayor Mack suggested to City Council that the ejection had been “staged.”
• September 14, 2010: I wrote – not for the last time – about the new Administration’s failure to hire senior managers: “We are now at the point where  it is no longer appropriate that these departments be headed by Temporary Directors who are not accountable to Council nor to us. Over the last several weeks, we have focused almost exclusively on the person of this Mayor. We need now to look at the bigger picture, and see that this government do what is needed to get a full, and accountable, crew on board with a process that is open, transparent and inclusive.”  Over the following 555 days, we’ve seen the Mayor’s response to this.

And more:

• October 5, 2o10, after the “Brown Water” incident with the Water Works: “Every person who is serving today as an Acting Director beyond their 90 days needs to do so via explicit resolution of Council. To the extent Council does not pass such resolution, or the Mayor does not nominate permanent leadership, our acting leadership serves in violation of city statute. And our city will careen down the road to the next problem situation. And the next one. And the next one. Again, I don’t think that getting permanent leadership in place is enough to turn things around. But it is absolutely necessary to ensuring at least some minimal level of competence and accountability.”
• October 13, 2010: “Unpaid bills. Fast-track appointments for judges allergic to fingerprints. No movement at all on appointments for permanent directors as required by law. ‘Assurances’ by public officials long gone and no longer accountable. More bushwa from the mayor and his spokeswoman. Each passing week we are seeing more evidence that this administration is lurching in crisis-bunker mode from one situation to another, with not much indication of competence nor skill.  There is, though, a great deal of evidence – whether in judicial appointments; juicy contract offers to friendly law firms; personnel moves around city departments hiring pals to jobs for which they are unqualified, as witnessed by last week’s debacle at the Water Filtration Plant – that, as Councilman Muschal said , we are seeing a lot of backroom dealing. And it stinks.”
• December 20, 2010: One of several pieces on the Mayor’s attempt to grant massive salary raises to a favored few of his inner circle: “[I]t’s just wrong to get ANY kind of increase at the same time this city is getting broker by the hour,and laying off and demoting dozens if not hundreds of other employees.” On December 24, the Mayor canceled his raise plans.

That’s just some of 2010. It seems so long ago, doesn’t it? But what seems clear to me here is not that I got everything right. Heck, I called on multiple occasions for a Chief of Staff be appointed to help Mack; it was a good idea, but I underestimated the ability of the Mayor to screw it up by hiring The Most Wrong Guy for the job.

I don’t get everything right. But I speak up. And so does Jim Carlucci, and Dan Dodson, and Darren Freedon Green, and Tracrey Syphax, and Pat Stewart, and Michael Walker, and Robert Chilson, and others; on their blogs, on the radio, on webcasts, on Facebook and on other places.

We get it Right more often than we get it Wrong. And we get it right more often, and many times much earlier, than Tony F. Mack and his Administration.It might be nice if the Administration, and Council, actually paid more attention to what their citizens are telling them. But there is not a whole lot I can do about that.

The Mayor calls that “Irresponsible.” I call that Doing Your Civic Duty.