A Run For Mayor? It Might Be In The Cards...

I'm a night person, always have been. I hate going to sleep, although when I get to the point where I can no longer keep my eyes open I have little choice. First thing in the morning I'm always in a fog, regardless of how much sleep I got or didn't get. No, night is when my head is the clearest, the time I do my best thinking. I got me a refill of coffee, the end of the pot I suppose, just before they announced that they were closing for the night. Nobody was around that I knew, the usual cadre of regulars having left at least an hour or two earlier. I was alone, able to pursue my confused thoughts, trying to make order out of mayhem.

Lately I've been getting more and more people wanting me to run for city council, but my district's seat still has three years to go and my friend Scott Galvin is sitting in it and doing a bang up great job to boot. That leaves the mayor's seat, but while I did run for council years ago, and narrowly lost, I've never wanted to be mayor. I didn't want to run for council either 19 years ago but the mayor back then talked me into it. Yet now people are encouraging me to run.

Lately the mayor and council have made a number of decisions that people interpert all wrong, but the general perception has changed from the city being run by a group of dedicated citizens to the city being run by a crazy bunch of self serving greedy political animals. They're not, of course. They really are nice and they really are dedicated. They just don't seem to have any concept of how the citizens perceive what's going on. Things like a huge raise in the water rates needed to cover major upgrading of a thirty plus year old system at about the same time as voting themselves an even more huge pay and benefits psackage. They're two seperate budgets, the water department expense and staffing city hall, but it's easy to see where the linkage comes from as the citizens and business owners bitch and moan about unaffordable water.

And the final nail in the coffin is a series of charter amendments that will change city elections from May to November (now that WILL save money!) but it will also extend the terms of those now in office, and it will remove the two-term limit on the mayor. The people are confused, and they're mad as hell. And here I sit pondering serious questions, like whether I can get away with leaving Monkette in the mayor's office during council meetings, or will the people expect her to be sitting up there with me? Should I really use that photo of me with the bruised and cut face, the one featuring a swollen black eye, when my next door neighbor's contractor beat the shit out of me for pointing out that he was drilling a well without a permit? That photo on campaign posters all over town will certainly garner plenty of attention. Will it garner votes, though? Lots of things to ponder, and a lot more coffee to drink. Wish me luck!