Democracy: A messy business

Man, the Monroe City Council meeting Tuesday was pretty interesting. Seems a lot of people still are p.o.ed about the way Debbie Manns was fired and the fact that the city council wasn't moved to explain its actions. It was looking pretty dicey for Mayor Al and his Civilian Conservation Corps (they conserve their energy by doing nothing). Citizens, some of them ordinary, were heaping abuse on the councilpersons who were a party to the public execution. But then, who should arise to defend the mayor? Sue Wetzel, the former councilperson, who decided not to run again under questionable circumstances. Sue basically recited a number of transgressions of the former Iacoangeli mayoral administration. detailing how the resignation of the former finance manager was the result of some sort of closed door skullduggery by Iacoangeli and his cronies. Her message seemed to be that Iacoangeli was wrong and did things badly, so Mayor Al had a right to be just as cutthroat.
Sue apparently listens as well to the citizens as she did when she was on city council. She missed the point, completely. Citizens wanted to know the reason for the Manns firing. There really wasn't any reason why someone couldn't give even a made-up reason -- those at-will contracts are designed to afford councils the right to fire on a whim without fear of legal problems. Put it this way: If Iacoangeli had fired someone in the same way and was asked about it, he would have given a reason -- even if it wasn't a plausible one. At least he was smart enough to appear responsive to public questions. Mayor Al always has been one to stonewall questions from people he considered political foes. Ironically, Sue's speech Tuesday night was longer than any discourse she gave while she was on council. In fact, she should become the poster-girl for constituent non-responsiveness. She decided to not run for re-election without ever stating publicly why, even when asked point-blank during a council meeting. She didn't owe an explanation to anyone, so Mayor Al's style seems compatible with hers. That's probably why he named her to a city ethics committee Tuesday (more on that later). It's kind of ironic. Her bosses asked her not to serve on council due to possible conflicts between community college and city business. Instead of standing up to them, she caved. What better person to sit on a committee to develop a personal ethics policy?