What’s it say that some of the year’s best laughs and chuckles were provided by those who spent thousands of dollars belonging to their friends, neighbors, well-wishers and business interests?
If nothing else it tells me that if you were looking for knee-slapping entertainment, it was money well spent by campaign contributors and taxpayers.
The year got off to a comical start as the Chula Vista City Council, lead by newly elected mayor Mary Salas, bickered over who should replace her on the City Council. It was like watching a dysfunctional family of circus clowns argue over who should join them in their tiny yuk-powered car.
Finally they settled on Steve Miesen, a big-time executive with the city’s only trash collection company, to fill Salas’s vacancy. Even my favorite former pin-up politician Pat Aguilar voted for him despite expressing misgivings about a possible conflict of interest, or even the appearance of one.
Even though there were plenty of other applicants without the real or perceived baggage, the four electeds — Salas, Aguilar, Pamela Bensoussan and John McCann — chose Miesen to be their fifth wheel because they were defeated by their own selection process. Not quite Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First” material but close enough.
Other side-splitting moments were watching Bensoussan explain that she would be open to the idea of someone serving a third term on the City Council after their initial eight-year term-out, even though during her 2014 campaign for mayor against Salas, Bensoussan said two terms ought to be the end of the line.
When the City Attorney’s Office comes back in January with its thoughts on term limits, maybe it’ll come up with a plan that is appealing to Bensoussan who, in her last four-year term, seems to have evolved her thinking on the issue.
Another chuckle-worthy highlight was watching the council come up with reasons to change zoning on the east side, allowing for a commercial property to make room for residential and mixed-use in exchange for a shiny new hotel that would make it the first of two in east Chula Vista.
Never mind that residents and an advisory board had voiced opposition to the exception and the additional congestion 600 new residential dwellings brings, the council voted to let Baldwin and Sons do what they needed to do because … well because developers know best?
When you’re an elected member of a governing body, be it a city council, state assembly, or Congress you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars of other people’s money to get that job, a job that allows you to spend other people’s money. There’s no pleasing all the people all the time and you’re probably doing your best.
That’s an important point for voters to remember: The decisions and actions electeds make through the year is the best those people have to offer. Suddenly I’m not in the mood for laughing.
