On Friday, Valentine submitted an addendum to the council agenda proposing an ordinance to require that “prior to (city council) ordering a special election, shall determine by majority vote, whether the recall petition properly identifies and supports a ground, or grounds, for recall and removal.
Attorney Bill Nerveless, who attended the meeting at Valentine’s request, and Interim City Attorney Paul Isham both agreed that the council should vote against the ordinance.
“Vote against the ordinance because it doesn’t have to do with the law,” Norvelle said. “If you do vote for this, it will wind up in court and each council person will wind up in court and each of you will be named as a defendant.”
“In my opinion, the proposed ordinance is improper, unenforceable and invalid,” he said.
Poor, poor guy. If he can't get the rules changed so that his little cabal can pick and choose whether the bourgeois is allowed to exercise its democratic rights, then what's a petty tyrant to do? Get his cronies to whine in his defense, of course:
District 3 Councilwoman Beth Sokolyk said the way the charter reads now, there was no way for Valentine to defend himself.
“There’s no ‘due process’,” she said.
Of course, the meanies orchestrating the petition, as well as City Attorney Isham have this crazy notion that an election constitutes "due process" for popularly elected officials in a democracy. Where do they get these wacky ideas?
Before the vote, the instigator of the recall petition drive Kevin Webb chided the council for considering the proposed ordinance.
“I didn’t believe these people (the council) would have the audacity to go into executive session and come out here — after knowing the objections of the city attorney — and force this on these people.”
Personally, I'm shocked because That-Ken-I-Hate's personal cheerleading squad of Beth Sokolyk, Kathleen Krueger and Pat Wiggins didn't kowtow to That-Ken-I-Hate's personal power grab for once, and pass the ordinance. I wonder why? Coule it be, perhaps, that Sokolyk is locked in a tough reelection campaign with Jay Patrick and worried that if she continues to, oh, disregard the wishes of her district's citizenry she could be voted out? Maybe? Do you think? As for Krueger and Wiggins, might they suddenly be realizing that without Sokolyk and That-Ken-I-Hate, they'd no longer be in the "cool kids" clique? That recall petitions could just as easily send them packing? How humiliating would that be for a first-termer like Krueger?
All is not lost, however. When faced with the prospect of his carefully-constructed empire collapsing around him, and his base scattering like rats from leaking tube (they can't go to the second tube floating the ice chest, since recent ordinances only allow one per person on the river, and ice chests are now microscopic, anyway) That-Ken-I-Hate falls back on a tried and true strategem employed by all the great petty tyrants of history: Claim you're the victim!
"I think I'm going to come out of this smelling like a rose," he said. "I really feel I am being bullied.
Give 'em hell, That-Ken-I-Hate. Future generations will mention your name alongside the likes of famous victims like D.B. Cooper, Brittney Spears and William Randolph Hearst. Truly, you are on the side of the angels!
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