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Sunday, Aug. 09, 2009

Step up to the pulpit

The legacy of Mayor C. Jack Ellis continues to haunt the city. No, he’s not pulling any strings from afar. He’s not running around whispering insults or proclaiming what he would do if he were still mayor. Ellis has gracefully faded into the background without a mumbling word. Still, his eight years in office have cast a pale over the administration of Mayor Robert Reichert.

It’s not because Reichert is similar to Ellis. He’s actually the anti-Ellis, if you will, but City Council is stuck in a time warp. James Timley, Elaine Lucas, Charles Jones, Rick Hutto, Miriam Paris, Michael Cranford, Alveno Ross, Ed DeFore and Nancy White remember the “Bad Old Days” of the Ellis administration, when it became necessary for council to limit his powers. Unfortunately, council has decided, after almost two years, not to give Reichert those powers back.

Not all council members are ensnared in the warp, certainly not new ones such as Erick Erickson, Lauren Benedict, Larry Schlesinger, Virgil Watkins, Lonnie Miley and Tom Ellington. And there are others, White, Paris, Hutto, DeFore and Ross, who are probably willing to give Reichert the powers granted in a strong mayor form of government back.

But we are reaping what we sowed, and let me be the first to say: Alveno Ross was right.

I know what you’re thinking. “Richardson has really fallen off the turnip truck this time. He must be smoking some of that wacky weed.” No, and no.

For just a moment, let’s enter the time warp. Ross was considered an ally of Ellis, and was thus deemed complicit in his antics when he voted against limiting the mayor’s powers.

Now, for just a moment, remember what Ross always said when measures came before council designed to neuter Ellis. While most council members — disappointed and disgusted with Ellis’ performance — eagerly voted to knock him to his knees, Ross rarely went along. He was labeled an Ellis lover and called a number of other less flattering terms. What people didn’t hear him say — or if they heard it, they ignored it — was: “What about the next mayor?”

Ross understood, probably more than most, that Ellis’ term would end, and when that day came in late December 2007, many members of council were still in the warp by requiring the mayor to submit a resolution and have it approved by committee and then full council to buy a box of pencils. That is, of course, a slight exaggeration, but the mayor has to run purchases more than $5,000 through council’s gauntlet. That is inefficient, particularly when some members of council can have a knock-down-drag-out fight over $1.5 million in free money.

In our form of government, it is up to the mayor to run the day-to-day operations of the city. He or she can’t do that while both hands are tied behind their back. Mayor Reichert won every precinct in the city, and unlike Ellis, he’s been too nice, too accommodating and too unwilling to take some members of council on.

For example, Reichert took the blame for council deciding, initially, to forego the $1.5 million in free grant money. It was not his fault that some members of council decided not to pay attention.

If I were to advise Mayor Reichert, I’d tell him it’s time to pick a fight. That is not his nature, but, by God, he’s the mayor and should exercise the powers granted to that office.

It’s time he challenged them. It’s time to stand and shout from that bully pulpit that can’t be stripped — not from a mayor who won every precinct. It’s time to play hard ball.

Charles E. Richardson is the Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at 478-744-4342 or via e-mail at crichardson@macon.com.