In our small city, we have a Common Council of seven members, and a city manager appointed by the council. Of our seven council members, six have been elected, and one sits as an appointee to fill the remainder of a vacant term.
They do not sit in session alone: the city clerk sits in the center of the group, and the police chief, Jim Coan, sits off to one side, beside the seat for the city manager. The police chief seldom speaks, as there is almost never a need for his participation. From his vantage, though, he stares out into the chamber, and with sloping shoulders and darkly circled eyes, surveys the small town he arrogantly and wrongly dominates.
In the session on the 18th, the city manager was not present. No matter; he had done his work for the town faction two days earlier, when he had endorsed Coan’s shameful witch-hunt against lawful speech as not merely legitimate, but ‘very legitimate.’ City Manager Brunner is not from our town — and will eventually leave for a more lucrative post — but while he remains here, he will have earned the thanks of the town’s most reactionary clique.
Coan walked all over Brunner last fall by upending Brunner’s city budget, but Brunner can do no more on his own account than endorse wrongful and mediocre conduct. Coan may have underestimated some, but he has sized Brunner up just right.
Brunner was not present at the meeting on March 18th. Sitting in for him was Director (yes, Director) of Public Works, Dean Fischer. If there has ever been evidence of inflation in titles and positions, Dean Fischer is surely a confirming example. (I’ll have more to say about Fischer on Friday.)
That Fischer and Coan were sitting next to each other was fortuitous; Fischer will not have to email to request our police department license plates on bloggers in the future. If he’s seated next to Coan again, and finds himself similarly inclined, Fischer need only whisper.
As for the meeting, nothing of great importance was discussed, and that would include council member Nosek’s concern that salt and sand from our recent winter may never fully disappear without human intervention.
Nosek even pined for former council member Hixson’s suggestion that our city purchase a leaf vacuum. Nosek opposed the proposal at the time, I think; desperate times, I suppose, call for desperate measures.
Nosek would put something like the proposed leaf vacuum to work as a salt and sand vacuum. I can help him, as I helped then-member Hixson. I offered a similar proposal in November 2007.
Over at the FREE WHITEWATER Department of Engineering for Better Everyday Living™, the design team built a device for leaf vacuuming. They estimated the cost per unit at only $76.94. Here’s the schematic:
I am not sure if it will work for salt and sand, but if Nosek’s interested, I’ll send one over to the municipal building.