Don't the antics at Auburn City Hall over the last year remind you of that dreaded elementary report card comment "doesn't play well with others"?
If anyone thought the situation would get better with the New Year, the shenanigans over the order in which members of city council vote is just the latest installment of the ridiculous.
The current elongated voting order folderal started when Councilor Robert Hunter moved to change the 13-year-old practice of having the mayor vote last, to first. He wanted to make Mayor Timothy C. Lattimore take a "leadership role" (isn't he one of a group that tries to ensure the mayor has no more power than themselves?). The mayor seemed to take such a change personally, and rightfully so (though his repetitive rants that the public should remember that this was an election year could have been done without).
This type of legislating and rule-making is of the worst kind - it is based on personality and not principle or good public policy. If members of the council want to hold the mayor accountable (which really isn't their job, it's the public's), there are other ways to do this. This slap on the hands was not the end of the issue; the ridiculousness continued, with a new debate over the order of voting.
While Councilor David Dempsey received halfhearted praise Monday on this page for wanting to move on from this near useless debate, the public shouldn't forget that he supported the original move against the mayor. More importantly, the latest debate over which order to go in started when the mayor, in rebellion, decided to call the roll, after himself, to his right, starting with Dempsey and not to the traditional left, with Councilor William Jacobs
Watching the video of the proceedings, Dempsey was visibly upset at the mayor's decision. It was he who asked that reversing the mayor's new voting rotation be put on the agenda, dragging this issue out.
So it was remarkable that last week Dempsey had the temerity to say, "This is getting convoluted again. I don't want to be put in that position, to vote on something that suggests that I am for one way versus another. I don't care which way they go, but I don't want to be in a position to vote for one thing or another, and give the impression that I am for one over the other. I am for whatever the body would like to do."
"I don't want to be in a position to have to vote for something that favors one over the other." Talk about a round and round argument. After originally demanding going back to where he would vote last, he abstained from a final vote.
One can only hope that the city council can shift from voting semantics and the process of seemingly trying to irritate each other to the public's business. So far in this New Year that has yet to be seen.
Guy Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn. He can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com
The current elongated voting order folderal started when Councilor Robert Hunter moved to change the 13-year-old practice of having the mayor vote last, to first. He wanted to make Mayor Timothy C. Lattimore take a "leadership role" (isn't he one of a group that tries to ensure the mayor has no more power than themselves?). The mayor seemed to take such a change personally, and rightfully so (though his repetitive rants that the public should remember that this was an election year could have been done without).
This type of legislating and rule-making is of the worst kind - it is based on personality and not principle or good public policy. If members of the council want to hold the mayor accountable (which really isn't their job, it's the public's), there are other ways to do this. This slap on the hands was not the end of the issue; the ridiculousness continued, with a new debate over the order of voting.
While Councilor David Dempsey received halfhearted praise Monday on this page for wanting to move on from this near useless debate, the public shouldn't forget that he supported the original move against the mayor. More importantly, the latest debate over which order to go in started when the mayor, in rebellion, decided to call the roll, after himself, to his right, starting with Dempsey and not to the traditional left, with Councilor William Jacobs
Watching the video of the proceedings, Dempsey was visibly upset at the mayor's decision. It was he who asked that reversing the mayor's new voting rotation be put on the agenda, dragging this issue out.
So it was remarkable that last week Dempsey had the temerity to say, "This is getting convoluted again. I don't want to be put in that position, to vote on something that suggests that I am for one way versus another. I don't care which way they go, but I don't want to be in a position to vote for one thing or another, and give the impression that I am for one over the other. I am for whatever the body would like to do."
"I don't want to be in a position to have to vote for something that favors one over the other." Talk about a round and round argument. After originally demanding going back to where he would vote last, he abstained from a final vote.
One can only hope that the city council can shift from voting semantics and the process of seemingly trying to irritate each other to the public's business. So far in this New Year that has yet to be seen.
Guy Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn. He can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com
The Citizens' Say
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