Potter, Again

Chris Potter has more:

A few more thoughts about the New Year's Eve Massacre ... and an attempt to clarify some of the more overheated rhetoric. Including my own.

I see that -- just as I predicted yesterday morning -- city councilor Patrick Dowd is trying to say that council got what it deserves when Luke Ravenstahl vetoed a bill too late in the year for council to override. Bob Mayo quotes Dowd sayingthat the mayor's 11th-hour veto is "poetic justice" for how council treated him.

Dowd also repeated his charge that council acted in a "fascist" manner. Bending the rules "is what fascists do," Dowd says.

Potter isn't a big fan of such juvenile name calling, by the way. He then sums things up a bit:

There's a broader picture here, one that council needs to think about on Monday when it chooses a president.

And completes the picture:

Make no mistake about it: Council got played. Ravenstahl won, and he did so by following the rules of the game. But that isn't the question. The question is, what's council's next move? Does it go with Ricky Burgess, who is offering a more conciliatory approach to the mayor? Or does it go with Bill Peduto, who would continue a more independent path for the legislative branch?

If I felt like Ravenstahl were the victim here -- if I felt like he hadn't had any chance to influence this legislation -- I'd be all in favor of Burgess' approach. But Ravenstahl had every chance to lead, and chose not to. He ceded that role to council, and then -- when he didn't get the results he wanted -- decided to thwart the legislation at the last possible moment. To me, that isn't someone who deserves the benefit of the doubt going forward.

We'll see what happens this week.