Tuesday, January 06, 2009

2009 Weakness Exposition, Day 1.

It's well understood that Coffey's ascendancy to the council presidency is owed to two primary factors:

1. No one else on the council wanted a leadership role

and

2. Since a majority of the other council members have shown an unwillingness to stand against Coffey's often untruthful, always counterproductive grandstanding, they hope the presidency will tame him in a way that they've been unable to muster themselves, with Gahan's consistent cowering (as praised by Coffey last night and confirmed by other CMs and citizens elsewhere) being exhibit A.

Didn't the Tribune jeer specifically mention "reactionary tradition" and that "leadership is lacking"? Isn't this a textbook case?

Council members regularly complained throughout the previous year about both Coffey's taking over meetings and his pugnacious yet incompetent residency on the Redevelopment Commission. Their first step of 2009 was to ensure more of both.

Given that they individually passed on taking responsibility for reining Coffey for a solid year, does anyone actually believe, should it become necessary, that council members will suddenly convene to do so in the future?

As Coffey himself mentioned last night, sometimes the most telling changes are the ones you don't see. That's commonly true because they don't happen.

I'm sure they'd point to other things but, to more experienced eyes, perhaps the most important impact generated by freshman council members, at least some of whom surfed what was essentially an anti-Coffey/Gang of Four wave into office, was to ignorantly hand off any notion of leadership to the most seasoned obstructionist in the city.

If recent history is any indication, we can all expect a succession of private mea culpas in the coming year about how they wish they'd voted differently while never actually raising the point publicly as Coffey runs over them.

The thin blue council line is getting noticeably thicker. Unfortunately, the defensiveness and insular instincts already apparent in the first meeting of the year aren't the byproduct of risk taking or bold maneuvering but rather a more general insecurity associated with the inability to explain one's self.

Even if Coffey handles the presidency well, he was put there by fear, misgivings, and a lack of fortitude that lend themselves to cynicism about rather than trust in any future council decisions.

Ask any of the council members about the person best suited for the presidential role and I highly doubt that more than a couple, let alone a majority of them, would name Dan Coffey. And yet, he's their new president, solely because no one else would step up or speak out.

Is that how they define an accomplishment? If so, I hope they let us know soon. Otherwise, their count and the public's count may differ even more than last year.

4 comments:

Christopher D said...

ahhhh... more change and progression in the hallowed halls of the councils grand chamber...

ecology warrior said...

In my view Gahan will go down as the worst council President in history, so although I dont expect much improvement from Coffey I dont see how he can be worst that the reign of error of Gahan. Gahan better concentrate on his district I belive his re-election will get a little rocky

ecology warrior said...

ps gahan, if u are so concerned about no bid contracts, why dont you ask the stormwater board why they are only considering one proposal from aqua utilities to provide jet vac service to the city of new albany stormwater program?

Highwayman said...

For my money Councilman (oops,make that)Council President Coffey inadvertently identified the primary reason for distrust of our local government. That being "what you don't see!"

I along with many others have repeatedly encouraged (vene begged) for them to enlighten us as to how, who, & why a given decision was made.

Even on the rare occasions they've got it right they have chosen more often than not to hide both the act and the process.

And how does that lead to public confidence in their performance??