How About an Early Resignation, huh?

Well, I tried last night but to no avail. I respectfully asked the Mayor for his resignation earlier than October 17th. Unfortunately, because of his decision to resign on that late date, we will not be able to have our next election for Mayor until November, 2009. When I pressed him for his reasons for not resigning sooner, he stuck with his original answer of having things to finish. I asked him what things, but I got no answer. Till the very end, as a lame duck, he will be pulling strings in Jackson.

It looks like his back is to the wall about the Building Department. There is no other avenue available but to keep it open. DCA will not handle it, we will NEVER outsource to a third party, and there are laws governing having a Building Department and a certain number of staff. I cannot understand why he just wouldn't concede the issue, as there is no place for him to go.

We also cancelled the CCTV contract. We had many questions about that issue, including why we need to include the turf fields. We do need surveillance by the jail, and the Mayor will be sending out RFPs very soon so that we are in compliance with the state.

So far, the Council has been anything but dull. We are trying to have open discussions, and I think we are succeeding.

Holy Cow

Well now, this is an interesting turn. Our Mayor has resigned, and it is up to us, a 5-member Council, the majority of whom were just elected, to appoint a leader. Holy cow! This, of course, was by design, or the Mayor would have resigned in time for candidates to be on the November ballot. Alas, the Council is now in the unenviable position of appointing, not electing, a Mayor. We will clearly tick off half the population of Jackson no matter what we do. I have been on the Council exactly one month, and I am now being asked to pick out a person who will have to run Jackson Township until either a special election is held, or 2010 when the next scheduled election will be held. It would have been so much better if the people had a chance to speak in November. That would have been more than fair as far as I am concerned.

Jackson Township will be left in a mell of a hess no matter what. The Mayor has publicly stated he has unfinished business to clear up before he leaves. That, I assume, means pushing for the closing of the Building Department amongst other things. In truth, I wish he'd leave now, as long as he's going. How much more mess will we have to clear up before we can start to do what we said we would do? And there is so much that needs to be done. All I ask is a chance to do these things and get on with the business of healing Jackson. There is no question that Jackson is in pain right now, and we just need a chance to try to get it back together. This new development, while welcomed by the majority, will only cause more havoc by the way it was done. This is a scenario I was hoping to prevent by really having open Government. So much for pipe dreams. And so the saga continues, and I am now a central player in a drama I did not create.