I went to the meeting of the City Council last night. Wait, that's wrong, I went to the meeting of the committee of the whole. In case you're wondering, the committee of the whole is the whole city council, but they call it the committee of the whole so they can make recommendations to themselves. Whew!
They seemed to start off real well. They had an intelligent debate regarding the date of the special election to fill the vacant Mayorial [spit] seat. I was happy that none of the Aldermen even considered appointing someone until an election could be held next year.
It was about this time that I started to squirm in my seat. A few of the Alderman had to ask for clarification about the statutes governing the intervals of the primary and the general elections. About 3 or 4 times. Even with that, it became evident to me that at least one Alderman (who will remain nameless) still couldn't get it their head. C'mon, it is simple math. Primary is held, then general is held 28 days later. Why is this difficult?
Ok, so they voted to recommend to themselves that the election would be held in June. I wasn't too put off by this, but I couldn't help but notice how cavalier they are with our money. By moving it back, it will cost the citizens of Racine an additional $36,000. Not much in the scheme of things, but, what could you do with $36K?
Then, it went bad.
The discussion turned to the Mayorial [spit] appointment. Alderman Coe praised the efforts of Alderman Maack and made a motion to appoint Maack as "Acting" Mayor [spit].
After a few Alderman said nothing important, Alderman Helding finally stepped in to inform the rest of the Council, sorry, Committee, that they can't simply create the office of "Acting" Mayor [spit]. If they make an appointment, that person would be Mayor [spit] not "Acting" or "Interm" Mayor [spit]. Since the office of Alderman and Mayor [spit] are incompatible, the Alderman would have to resign his seat.
This obviously came as quite a shock to many Aldermen. The confused babble that ensued culminated in Alderman Maack asking Alderman Coe to withdraw his motion. I sat there wondering "Why didn't they know that?".
The committee ended the evening by resolving to meet again next week. I truly believe that, after this minor fiasco, they couldn't get out of that room fast enough. Before they left, at least one Alderman cautioned them to come prepared to make an appointment recommendation next week.
Let's hope so. We need to move away from the taint of Becker [spit] as fast as possible.
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8 comments:
Well, I hope that they follow their own recommendations and listen to themselves for once, or else they should chew themselves out strongly! Maybe they should start a telephone campaign to call themselves up and remind themselves who runs this city.
Btw, I'm voting Zoltar.
First I want to start by saying I believe your version of the events AA as you have nothing to gain by fibbing. I have failing respect for reporters but Fox 6 reported that there where to be 2 elections one in May and another June 2nd totaling 70K of our money Maybe they where misled? If one of the aldermen wants to be acting mayor until the election they had to give up there seat on counsel and if not elected to the mayoral position they then have forfeited their seat as alderman plus loose their seat as acting mayor. So does this mean we'll have no acting mayor as none of them want to give up their seat? I know they have another meeting scheduled but come on, are any of them confident enough to give up their seat?
I volunteer my services as acting mayor until we officially elect Madame Zoltar.
Abby, I can tell you that Maack certainly doesn't want it. I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head when Helding brought that little gem to their attention.
As far as the election, it will cost $36K for both the primary and the general. Since we already have an Aldermanic election scheduled in April, Helding's motion was to hold the primary on election day in April, then have the general election 28 days later, so the only additional cost would be $36K for the general.
But noooooo, Friedel and others thought that was too soon and amended the motion so the primary will be held in May and the general in June, costing us an additional $36K. $36K for the April election, $36K for the May Primary, and $36K for the June General. I think the 8 that voted for the amendment should have to personally put up the money.
sounds like nobody has a clue what they're going, time for us to take over!!!
BTW, after they learned that they would have to relinquish their Aldermanic seat to be appointed Mayor [spit], discussion turned to the subject of King-making.
Basically, they don't want to appoint someone who will be running for Mayor [spit] because that would make them an incumbent. In speaking to a few of the Aldermen after the meeting, I voiced that I was unsure if being appointed by the City Council would be an advantage in the election. lol
Thanks for clearing that up for me. You know you need to use laymans terms for me!
They need to get rid of ALL these GD Alderpeople and start fresh!!
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