I love politics (esp. the local variety) but will never be a politician
Ok, I have to blog about this even though there are much better things I should be doing right now.
I attended the first reading of the 2008 Goshen City budget (no, it’s not available online, hard to believe I know) at a City Council meeting Tuesday evening. I was there with Gina, my Downtown Goshen, Inc. partner-in-crime, to answer any questions if the Council had any about our increased budget request for DGI ($40k, up from $20k).
If you haven’t watched The Wire, you should. It’s an incredible HBO show that’s well-written, well-acted and highly intelligent; it takes on life in Baltimore and treats cops, drug dealers, politicians, teachers as human, with all their flaws, aspirations, and failures intact. Creator David Simon (who created the TV show Homicide) describes it as a 66 hour movie.
Anyways, at the City Council meeting there was a total Wire moment. One of the city councilmen, Daniel Grimes, moved to make a resolution (which wasn’t on the agenda, so they had to first move to put it on the agenda) to essentially encourage the Mayor to add 3 policemen. All in all, a pointless resolution but in a council election year, something that could make a difference with the voters.
The 3 Republicans on the council voted against the resolution. I totally agree with their position — it’s a pointless, politically-motivated resolution. However, clearly they haven’t watched The Wire or they would have known this political maxim (now known as DEVAAP): Don’t Ever Vote Against Adding Police. Ever. No matter how much sense it makes.
Guess how the Goshen News reported the council meeting? With the headline “Council seeks more officers:”
All seven council members said they felt hiring more officers was a good idea, but the three Republicans  Paul Scott, Bill Bloss and Chic Lantz  voted against the resolution, saying they felt it was an unnecessary vote as Mayor Allan Kauffman had already stated his plans to bring the request before the council sometime yet this year after the budgeting process is over.
…
The four council members who supported the ordinance  Grimes, Everett Thomas, Julia Gautsche and Dave Puro  indicated they felt it was important to make it clear that they were committed to adding more officers.
How do the voters interpret this in a 30 second sound bite? Republicans voted against adding police. Oops.
