(backposting)
Before relaxing our grip on Dan Coffey’s New Year’s coronation, otherwise known as Monday’s city council meeting, a respectful but nuanced nod is due at-large councilman John Gonder, who took time during the PUB-OFF-COMM of the conclave to share a newspaper story about deaths in a tragic fire in Anderson, Indiana.
Apparently the fire was set by children playing with a cigarette lighter, and although the precise make and model of the lighter could not be gleaned from the media coverage, CM Gonder was moved to ruminate on the council’s much maligned “novelty lighter” ordinance of 2008.
He defended the council’s good intentions in approving the ordinance, observed that there had yet to be any discernable sign of enforcement stemming from it, and noted that if the ordinance was fated to be ignored, it would be better to remove it from the code book entirely.
Before I proceed, allow me to offer clarification. I continue to regard John Gonder and Jack Messer as my de facto council representatives, given the absence of diplomatic (or undiplomatic) recognition – or, for that matter, a pulse – from those representing the 3rd and 6th districts, these being my home and work areas, respectively.
Accordingly, I appreciate Gonder’s remarks on Monday, and remarkably, Gonder’s sincerity prompted a brief discussion of how the council might better monitor enforcement of the laws it passes, and perhaps more importantly, it led to another in a series of confessions from the city attorney to the effect that in the absence of time and money, such violations will have to be reported to his office, and will be investigated accordingly.
Somewhere, Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors’ ears are burning, but we’ll take what we can get, while hoping that indications of conscience are harbingers of better things to come. Later in the meeting, preliminary ordinance enforcement plans were previewed. Later in the week, a rumor went around to the effect that the city attorney would become full time. All well and good, assuming anything actually happens.
Now for the promised nuance.
Obviously, some members of the council remain in abject denial when it comes to the power of the symbolism attached to what they do … and don’t do, and in this context, CM Coffey’s Monday semantics about the importance of what doesn’t happen when it isn’t seen deserves placement in the dumpster, and fast.
In itself, a novelty lighter ordinance is perfectly rational and incontestably well-meaning, and yet it is unmistakably inconsequential in the larger legislative scheme of things. After all, kids were setting houses on fire with matches long before lighters were invented.
A novelty lighter ordinance becomes symbolic fodder for satire, and worthy of at least a slight measure of regular derision, when it can be clearly contrasted with an accompanying absence of sustained, quantifiable action in far more important areas.
Presenting the Gahan Gambit: Look, ma – following in the footsteps of our conniving council predecessors, we’ve once again refused our Constitutional duty to maintain fair legislative districts, but check it out: We’re protecting children from the evil Chinese!
I know, I know … when you have to explain the joke, it isn’t nearly as funny. The problem remains that more of “us” than “them” get it the message … if not the joke.
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2 comments:
did you read the Tribune yesterday about the greenway vandalism? The city officials all quoted hadn't a clue. England said “I can’t be having people going and tearing stuff up,”
My reaction was to wonder why the person we elected and pay to deal with precisely these kind of public safety issues, would dare to go to the press without a plan for dealing with it. The press would rip you to shreds if you did something stupid like that in the "first-world". Imagine Bush standing up at Ground Zero on 9/11 and yelling "I'm just really burned up these people have been trashing NYC." and then went back to bed. I'm not comparing NA and 9/11, just the bizarre lack of responsibility and accountability people display here. Tom Menino, Boston's long time Mayor would have been telling the press within minutes of this sort of wanton public mischief and announced a special police detail that was already working to round up the punks that did it and put them in a work detail for the next year picking up trash on the Greenway. BUT NO! The city throws up it's hands and spends more of our money to clean up more messes made by more and more feral humans the town seems to breed. The feral punks that go down to the greenway and destroy things should be chained into gangs in bright orange jumpsuits and after some time maintaining the greeway for FREE, they might not want to trash it anymore. Ahhhh! I think John Gonder is correct in saying all the codes that are unenforced should be repealed or the city is just nothing but a lawsuit in perpetuity
I think you have to consider the council's culpability as well.
In the lighter scenario, for instance, the council passed a law with the understanding that the fire department would be responsible for enforcing it and then promptly cut the fire labor budget as if the two aren't related. Both have been labeled as "accomplishments" by council standards.
In enforcement matters, I and many others have advocated that the council do substantially more homework, suggesting not just laws (which they haven't really done either) but the financial strategies for dealing with their enforcement.
If nothing else, they'd be in a much better position to judge the mayor's proposals. In a best case situation, the council would be proposing practical solutions. As is, they haven't proposed anything, legally, financially, or otherwise.
In budget matters, did the council insist that money be set aside for specific, more intensive enforcement activities, even in instances where their actions increased enforcement needs or at least tried to (like the smoking ordinance)? Nope.
They simply declared that we have the laws we need on the books (which tells me they may not have examined them in detail) and that the mayor is responsible for enforcing them.
As Coffey made clear in his presidential speech, the council has historically adopted the attitude that it's their job to stop things from happening rather than actively trying to make them happen. Thus far, it seems like the newbies are buying into that attitude, though we elected them for something very different.
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