Praise for the Council

On New Year's Day, I received a chipper and realistically optimistic email from Jan Marcason, wishing her supporters "good health and happiness in 2009". The other night at the beer party, someone asked me why I am so positive about Jan Marcason, Beth Gottstein, Russ Johnson, Deb Hermann and several other city councilmembers who have, at least to all appearances, not been supportive of Mayor Funkhouser, whom I also support.

The question has many answers.

In the biggest sense, I don't necessarily want a monolithic City, County, State or Federal government. I've never understood the perspective of those who feel that government is working best when it is bickering least. In reality, government is one of the battlegrounds where clashing interests meet to decide on shares and rules - peace is an unnatural state in any legislature, including our City Council. When Barnes had a dependable majority behind her, she drove our city into financial disgrace and allowed TIF pigs to plunder our future.

Beyond the inherent conflicts of legislative life, I also accept that each elected official is a human being. I think all of them have had grand moments and boneheaded blunders. The Mayor, for instance, made a mistake in the Semler appointment/retention, and his go-it-alone approach to firing Cauthen was simply foolish. As for the Council, the Volunteer Ordinance is an hysterical embarrassment, and the thoughtless decision to give Cauthen a raise and a three year contract may have been the only way to be more foolish than Funkhouser in the Cauthen saga.

In short, if I want to find a perfect politician who never makes costly, bone-headed mistakes, I had better search someplace other than City Hall.

But I think they're, on the whole, doing a darned fine job. They joined together and rejected Cauthen's ludicrous, unrealistic budget. They did the hard work to come up with a far better budget and are already working toward doing it again in an even bleaker economic context.

They came up with a good Economic Development Policy, and have generally eschewed the sort of high-cost, high-profile, high-risk projects that typified Credit Card Kay's tenure. Instead, their few investments have focused on the long-neglected East Side of Kansas City.

They have also done the hard and completely non-glamorous work of drafting a sewage overflow control plan, as required by the EPA. Jan Marcason led them to approval of a well-thought-out, innovative and environmentally-friendly plan that will improve our city for at least a generation. The plan may not capture quite as many readers as a deposition in the lawsuit that the City Council has kept alive, but it is far more significant to our city's future.

It's easy to get frustrated by the continuously-mistaken, bickering bunch of knuckleheads that you read about in the paper and on blogs. But if you pay attention to the work they do, and tune into Channel 2 from time to time, you'll see that they are not the same people you read about.

They are gracious 99% of the time. They are cooperative most of the times when they ought to be. They represent conflicting interests effectively and competently. They answer calls and emails, and seek out the opinions of citizens. They take on difficult tasks without expectation of glory or lucre, and they do those tasks well. They respond to problems day in and day out. They endure attacks on their intelligence and character without responding in kind.

We are truly fortunate to have the City Council we have right now. There is great work going on at City Hall, and those of us who pay attention too rarely offer appreciation.

To borrow from Jan Marcason's email, I wish the Mayor and each of the Councilmembers good health and happiness in 2009. Thank you for your work on our behalf in 2008.