How sad that this mess happens when serious city hall observers were just becoming comfortable with the political make-up of CITCOM. Where that goes from here will depend largely on what the investigation turns up.
In the meantime, will the believability of the team out there explaining the need for the millage be compromised?
The Cast of Players
Jim Rasor: The Hero & Villain
Pat Capello: Heroine & Villainess
City Officials, Elected & Appointed
Good Citizens: Residents who post their real names
The Mob: Residents who use screen names
The Anonymous Whistleblower
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The Plot
Commissioner Jim Rasor, through a recently established legal entity, applied to receive a private parking permit for the Fresard site. If completed, the move would have deprived the city of income.
Denouement
No need for suspense. Rasor has been and remains a nice guy socially, but -- whatever the legal conclusion of the Investigation -- Jim-R remains guilty of questionable behavior here. There are those who would replace "questionable" with "unseemly," even ""sleazy." His late offer to give 15% of what he might earn to ROOTS elicited dismissive guffaws.
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The bullet points:
- However and whenever Jim-R made his move, it wasn't transparent. Nor am I sure that it needed to be at the beginning. His action became suspect because it became known after several owners of last year's private parking permits complained of unfairness at being denied permits this year.
- A widely distributed anonymous letter to the mayor and city commission complained that Rasor had received a permit to use the Fresard site as a private parking lot. (He had submitted his application but it had not yet been approved.) In view of the city's prior decision not to use volunteers this year, thus depriving several non-profits of income, the writer charges "conflict of interest" and "corruption," since the city itself was also being deprived of revenues.
- The letter certainly increased public awareness of Jim-R's move and accelerated citizen response to it, but rumors of his actions were already rippling though city hall and among serious city hall observers, so word was sure to come out even without the letter.
- Attention quickly focused on City Manager Don Johnson because residents, wrongfully, thought he had already approved Rasor's request, and The Mob began their threads, especially on Patch.
- After a few days of apparently increasing anger in those threads, the city reacted by scheduling a Special CITCOM Meeting to address the matter. Commissioners Pat Capello and Peggy Goodwin made the formal request for the meeting. I say "apparently" because -- as so often true of long blogger threads -- the posting parties were attacking each other, rather than pursuing the issue.
- Capello demanded two things: a) An independent investigation of Rasor's actions, to determine if they constitute conflict of interest or a violation of the city's ethics ordinance, and b) that each member on the commission (or all those sitting at The Table?) be asked what they knew and when they knew it.
- Mayor Ellison pointed out that because Jim-R's application had not yet been approved, no violation had occurred. City Attorney David Gillam mused that had the situation developed as rumored, it would have been a conflict of interest.
- Somewhere in there, the Mob went in different and conflicting directions. Those who dislike Rasor found fault with everything he did or said, even taking part of one thread to argue whether he should have had the right to vote to agree to an investigation. Capello was praised for her actions by some. Others accused her of leaving a loophole through which Jim-'R can escape formal criticism or punishment. What punishment? Forced resignation? Fine? Forbidden to vote on any matters concerned with the Fresard site? Recuse himself from participating in any decisions re whoever ends up really building the speculative hotel?
- The case against Rasor, if there is one, is complicated by his also being a member of the Planning Commission which will have to deal with that hoped-for development.
- Complicating the situation further is the fact that the whole mess involves Arts, Beats & Eats and the Downtown Development Authority. The business owner, the DDA, and the City Administration have established operational and financial relationships which seem convoluted and less than transparent from the outside. So suspicious are some that they see a conflict of interest when they learn that one individual serves ABE and DDA, separately, as a contract employee. It doesn't help that the DDA is perhaps the most bad-mouthed city agency to which residents pay any attention.
- A worrisome number of residents are expressing unhappiness and distrust of everyone sitting at The Table. Not quite "Off with their heads," but close.
Final thought:
How sad that this all happens when serious city hall observers were just becoming comfortable with the political make-up of CITCOM. Where that goes from here will depend largely on what the investigation turns up.
In the meantime, will the believability of the team out there explaining the need for the millage be compromised?
Frank Versagi is the editor of Versagi Voice.
