Today's Exhibit A in the Open Air Museum of Ignorance and Superstition is R-08-34, a resolution that was defeated 6 to 3 at last evening’s city council meeting.
It was a Seinfeld kind of zoning resolution – in other words, it was something about nothing at all, offered by a flailing and resentful councilman who variously described it as altering absolutely nothing and providing vital protection, rather as though it were a blocks-long prophylactic with holes the size of shotgun houses, all for the ostensible purpose of helping Westendians learn how to say “no” to developers who make offers for their property. It wasn’t explained why a zoning change might make the word “no” easier to say.
When asked, the city’s planner characterized the resolution’s proposed rules change as an “academic exercise,” and in essence, the very fact of its inclusion constituted reality of another dimension, namely, as another in an unceasing series of de facto bi-monthly filibusters belched into the public record by the increasingly irrelevant Wizard of Westside.
According to the right Reverend Coffey, his personally enumerated Westendians were vociferously united in favor of his resolution, so much so that not a single resident of the councilman’s district attended the meeting to speak on the topic, and of course it was left unsaid whether Coffey’s petition signers were occupants of the 65% of West End housing stock presently serving as rental property, or if they were among the 15% of foreclosures, or (could it be) those actually owing their own homes in the area he has “protected” so well for so long.
Of course, transparent nonsense, flagrant illogic and comic book capers are Coffey’s sole stock in political trade, and as the councilman tied himself in contradictory assertions, we just laughed aloud like always.
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Coffey gotta grandstand, and it was a sight to behold when Jack Messer, who undertook to rebut the Wizard’s inanities, reminded the council that Coffey’s Swiss cheese condom resolution might have the unintended effect of lowering property values in an area where the incumbent has done so much to depress the economy that little beyond replanting the native hardwood forest might succeed at this point.
In response, Coffey got the demonic gleam that comes when he believes deep down that he has a valid “gotcha,” and with Steve Price’s vacuous Jethro nodding vigorously in agreement, the Wizard cooed: If the people thought their property values would be going down, then why didn’t they come to the meeting and say so?
Then came a voice from the crowd:
“What, did you tell them not to come?”
The gleam turned to a glower, the assembled crowd hooted some more, the filibuster dragged on for a few more counts, and another twenty-five minutes of the council’s term was lost owing to the necessity of massaging Dan Coffey’s needy ego.
It’s no way to do business … then again, we ain’t open air for nothing, are we?
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