Hazlehurst’s Blog
Insight and commentary from John Hazlehurst

The city needs a weak leader

8

Ours is a predictable city. Those of us who have spent a couple of decades (or more) at the foot of Pikes Peak know that:

  • It snows in April.
  • The hail will get your tomatoes in July.
  • Douglas Bruce will submit lunatic initiatives during every election, and some will pass.
  • Residents of the city core feel shortchanged by the suburbs.
  • Residents of the suburbs feel shortchanged by the core city.
  • If editorials in both the Gazette and the Independent support an initiative, the voters won’t.
  • Rowdy nightclub patrons have bothered the powers that be since the late 19th century (source: the memoirs of “Prairie Dog” O’Byrne, who harnessed a team of elk to his carriage during the 1880’s, and drove around town terrifying the respectable folk of Colorado Springs whenever he left the friendly confines of the saloons and brothels of Colorado City…but I digress).
  • When times are good, developers are bad (greedy despoilers of the environment who ignore the greater good of the city!).
  • When times are bad, developers are good (don’t just sit around-despoil the environment and create some jobs!).
  • And in good and bad times alike, we are always in the midst of a leadership crisis.

It’d be easy enough to create a convenient, one-size-fits-all leadership crisis template, just to ease the burdens of future scribes. Here’s a model.

During [a meeting/an informal gathering/an invitation-only event/an exclusive interview/a Facebook post] [name/affiliation] said that the [name of organization] is suffering from a crisis of leadership.

“The [city/county/chamber/EDC/business community] is adrift and rudderless,” said Blank, “we need firm, decisive leadership, or we won’t [reach our goal/recover our lost jobs/regain public trust/get the voters to approve a tax increase]. We’re moving forward, and we’ve formed [name of committee] which will be focused on [words, not actions] and headed by [insert names]. This initiative must and will succeed, because the consequences of failure are [too great/too embarrassing/too insignificant] to accept.

This is not just [one cranky rich guy's obsession/another annoying do-nothing group/a badly written press release]. This is [a call to action/a good time to drink shots/nothing important, actually].”

History teaches us that the world’s ills have not been cured by strong leaders.

It’s hard to argue that Hitler, Stalin, and Jim Jones were weak and indecisive. Had Stalin been as ineffective as Tsar Nicholas, or had Hitler been as irresolute as Neville Chamberlain, the world might have been spared both the Soviet Union and World War II. The problem at Jonestown was not the cyanide in the Kool-Aid, but the hundreds of unfortunates who drank it. And if Osama bin Laden hadn’t been a charismatic leader, the twin towers might still stand.

So why do we think a “strong mayor” will do anything but make our problems worse? Effective leaders go where they want to go, not necessarily where we should go. With that in mind, I’ll vote for whoever promises to be ineffectual, inattentive, lackadaisical, and indolent. I want a mayor who’d rather party than govern, one who realizes that 90 percent of problems solve themselves, and the other 10 percent are too complicated for any local elected official to solve. I’m trying to think of a good candidate…

Maybe I’ll run.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 10th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Meet our city’s new mayor

13

Judging from recent election results, a majority of Colorado Springs voters will support any reasonable measure to cure the city’s ills, as long as the measure doesn’t involve the dreaded “T” word.

That may be why a proposal to change the city’s form of government to the so-called “strong mayor” system has gotten so much traction.

A strong mayor must be better than a weak mayor, right? Strong bodies trump weak bodies, strong minds are better than weak ones, and strong teams win the Super Bowl while weak teams don’t even make the playoffs.

By putting a strong mayor in office, we’ll rebuild our city, put in a real CEO, and he/she will work miracles! Jack Walsh took GE, a faltering legacy manufacturer, and turned it into world-devouring powerhouse-so why can’t we find our own Jack (or Jill) Walsh and let him/her work wonders?

No more quarrelsome council, no more stubborn, unaccountable bureaucrats-we’ll get someone who will crack down on all those slackers and make the streetcars run on time!

That’s fine, I guess, but the city manager form of government has served us well for nearly a century, and, despite its obvious flaws, may be superior to a strong mayor system.

In our present form of government, the mayor has little statutory power. He/she presides over council meeting and has a vote and a voice, and that’s about it. Council is predominantly a policy-making body, with hire/fire authority over half a dozen appointees, including the Utilities director and the city manager.

The mayor is elected at large, and is seen as the city’s leader. To be effective, a mayor must be respected and trusted both by residents of the city and by his/her fellow members of council. Gaining such respect and trust isn’t easy, but many of our recent mayors have managed to do so.

It’s difficult to imagine that Bob Isaac and Mary Lou Makepeace could have been more powerful or more effective leaders in a different form of government. With sure political instincts, patience, intelligence, and generally supportive colleagues, they didn’t merely preside-they governed.

Yet both of them understood that they couldn’t govern without the affection and support of city residents.

By contrast, Mayor Lionel Rivera, although just as smart, savvy, and experienced as either of his illustrious predecessors, has stumbled badly - and not because of deficient leadership skills. Fairly or not, he bears responsibility for the unpopular USOC deal, for the Stormwater Enterprise, and for November’s failed property tax increase. A mayor more sensitive to the times, and to the quirks of our city, might have steered a different course.

A paid, full-time, “strong mayor” wouldn’t need either continuing popular support or the support of a majority of council to govern. Council would devolve into a mere legislative body, whose actions would be subject to the mayor’s veto. Such vetoes would require a supermajority of council members to override.

Elections, as we all know, are not easily predictable. Under the present system, there are enough checks and balances to prevent an eccentric or incompetent mayor from doing much damage. That wouldn’t be the case in a strong mayor system.

And I can easily imagine a scenario that would result in the election of a certain former elected official and activist as the city’s first strong mayor.

Say hello to Mayor Douglas Bruce!

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 8th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Who will buy the Gazette?

4

The Gazette’s parent, Freedom Communications, is expected to exit from bankruptcy within six weeks. Under the company’s plan for reorganization, secured creditors led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. will own all of the company’s equity.

That won’t last. The banks must, by law, divest themselves of their interests in the company within five years. In practice, they’ll probably move a lot faster.

As a company, Freedom, like Topsy, “jest grew.” It owns dozens of far-flung, diverse, and unrelated media properties. The company owns a bunch of little papers in a remote part of west Texas, ditto in Florida, ditto in South Carolina, a random assortment of TV and radio stations, the Gazette, and a sluggish newspaper in southern California, the Orange County Register.

Of the company’s just-appointed six member all-male board of directors, four are private equity guys. Board chair James Dunning heads the Dunning Group, “a private media group which specializes in media leveraged buyouts.”

Director Ross Levinsohn “is a founding and managing director of Fuse Capital, which invests in digital media and communications.”

Sean Moriarty works at the Mayfield Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital group. Mitchell Stern is a consultant who worked for Murdoch, and subsequently ran DirecTV.

Aside from interim CEO Burl Osbourne, who took over for Scott Flanders (presently Playboy’s CEO) when Freedom declared bankruptcy, there’s only one newspaper guy on the board-Donald Grenesko, who was CFO of the Tribune company until 2008.

These are guys who know how to buy and sell media properties, not operate them for the long term. There’s a lot of high-level expertise there, and it’s reasonable to expect that the new board will move swiftly to sell off the company, piece by piece.

Why so? Because owning old media nowadays is like owning a pay telephone company 15 years ago. The companies are still throwing off some cash, still have strong market niches, but time is not on their side. It’s best to get rid of Freedom’s unwieldy corporate structure, spin off individual properties to local owners, take the money and run.

Both current Gazette publisher Steve Pope and Independent owner/publisher John Weiss are, according to the usual unreliable sources, trying to put together investor groups to make an offer for the gray lady of Prospect Street.

Will either succeed? Will they team up in a Colorado Springs variant of “The Odd Couple?” Will the Gazette be spun off to another media group, such as Gannett or Media News Group?

Who knows? But one thing is certain-the Gazette will find new owners, and it’s doubtful that the new owners will stick with the paper’s proudly eccentric editorial policy. Unless, of course, our unpredictable new councilman, Sean Paige, can round up some moneyed ideologues to preserve Ayn Rand’s tattered temple.

Otherwise, prepare for the end of days!

R.C. Hoiles? Who’s he? Libertarianism? Did you mean vegetarianism?

Sic transit gloria mundi.

<-Back to CSBJ.com

Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 4th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Marijuana, mercantilism and my cornfield

3

Sen. Chris Romer (D-Denver) is not the first politician to see the, um, revenue potential in the de facto legalization of marijuana, but he’s grabbed the issue with all the enthusiasm of the newly-converted.

As the Denver Post reported Thursday:

“Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said he intends to amend a bill that creates regulations for medical-marijuana dispensaries to include a provision that places an excise tax on medical marijuana, similar to the special excise tax that already exists for alcohol. Because of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, that provision - if first approved by lawmakers - must be put before the voters before the tax could be imposed.

Romer wants to use the resulting revenue - which he hopes to be about $10 million to $15 million annually - to fund drug education programs for teens, substance- abuse treatment centers and medical care for veterans and the poor. Romer said he is concerned the state’s boom in medical-marijuana use could create a companion boom in recreational marijuana use among young people. ”

Such concern is admirable, I guess, but there are already a lot of recreational marijuana users in the country. What vexes the good senator is not the number of folks who fire up, but the quantity of dope which goes untaxed.

According to my friend Tiffany, who has her medical marijuana prescription card, the “dispensaries” that she patronizes charge between $50 and $80 for an eighth of an ounce of the demon weed.

Taken at the lower end, that translates into a price of $6,400 per pound. That’s a lot of money for the fruits of an easily cultivated annual, which grows readily in a wide range of climates.

Such outlandish prices are determined not by the market, but by the law. Were it legal to grow and consume marijuana, prices would fall precipitously.

Let’s consider a similar annual, which requires careful cultivation, lots of sun, and massive inputs of fertilizer and water. Despite such difficulties, ingenious farmers have managed to successfully raise this South American plant. Thanks to science and economies of scale, American farmers can grow eight-foot stalks of this once-rare form of grass and bring its tasty inflorescences to market at remarkably low prices.

You’ve probably bought an inflorescence or two at your local supermarket. Zea mays var. saccharata, otherwise known as sweet corn, is one variant of the most widely grown crop in the United States. Last year, our intrepid farmers produced 332 million metric tons of corn. And, at around 25 cents an ear during season, sweet corn is certainly affordable.

Imagine if marijuana were cultivated as is corn-on vast tracts of farmland with rigorously controlled inputs of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, and water. The price would fall precipitously, as would the state’s tax revenues.

A desultory search of the state budget failed to reveal any multi-million dollar “corn tax” revenue item. Yet the state might well consider a different levy.

During the early 19th century, England adopted so-called “corn laws,” which taxed imported corn, hoping to protect farmers from low-priced foreign imports. Rather than taxing local producers and consumers, why not tax the vast operations that export commercial-grade marijuana from Mexico and Canada? In true mercantilist fashion, Colorado would then relieve the drug cartels of a portion of their vast profits, while protecting our own inefficient farmers. Enforcement wouldn’t be a problem-we’d just send Sen. Romer down to Juarez to collect the dough!

Despite the feel-good verbiage surrounding the issue, Romer and other like-minded legislators want marijuana to be both legal and illegal. Legal enough to tax, but not legal enough to cultivate at scale. They want high consumption, at high prices.

They know perfectly well that folks like Tiffany, who actually use marijuana as a medicine, are outnumbered by the tens of thousands of Coloradans who have scammed themselves a de facto “get out of jail free card,” enabling them to bypass the underground economy. Yet thanks to the confusing morass of laws that govern marijuana use in Colorado, “legal” users must still pay underground prices.

I never much liked weed - made me dull-witted, paranoid, and sleepy (not that I ever inhaled, of course!). Give me corn on the cob any time - and, in fact, I raised a little plot of hybrid corn last summer, which eventually yielded half a dozen small, misshapen ears.

Imputed cost: about $30 an ear, valuing my labor at zero.

Clearly, I ought to switch crops.

Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 1st, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Comparing headlines and the Gazette’s stealth missile

1

Headline on the Gazette’s Web site this morning:

“Tax hikes signed by Ritter.”

Headline on the Denver Post Web site this morning:

“Ritter signs bills to end tax breaks, help balance budget.”

Are we looking at bias here? The Gazette trends right, the Post trends left. Do the headlines mirror the editorial positions of the newspapers?

I doubt it. Both headlines are factual and defensible, if not absolutely even-handed. And ideology has little to do with the craft of headline writing. If you think it’s hard to write a pithy tweet, or to compose a graceful haiku, try summarizing an 800-word story in five to nine words. It’s a delightful craft, one which can only be mastered by long practice. “Hicks nix stix flix” and “Headless body in topless bar” - two examples of reality providing an occasion for genius to meet inspiration.

But for folks who believe that daily newspaper coverage is driven by political agendas, grudge-settling and hidden biases, there’s always evidence of slanted coverage - just as there’s abundant evidence that Denver International Airport is the site of a vast, hidden secret guv’mint project, complete with subterranean tunnels to Cheyenne Mountain.

But it does appear that the Gazette has in fact launched a secret project aimed at uncovering the shenanigans of certain powerful folks in our community.

A couple of months ago, the G assigned a new reporter to cover the County Commission and, it appears, to report upon the antics of a certain Douglas Bruce.

Eileen Welsome has the kind of unthreatening persona that is so valuable to an investigative reporter. She’s quiet, persistent and unrelenting. She’s already written some great pieces about the county, and has so annoyed the commissioners that Gazette editor Jeff Thomas has had to endure a meeting with at least one indignant elected official.

But it seems that neither the Dougster nor our eminent elected officials have bothered to Google Welsome. One commissioner characterized her as “not understanding anything,” and ”asking lots of ignorant questions,” and “filing all these CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) requests.”

But maybe she understands more than the commissioners give her credit for - and maybe her employer is expecting great things from her.

A few years back, Welsome won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting while working as a reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune. The series of stories covered the experience of Americans who were unknowingly research subjects of government radiation experiments, according to the Pulitzer Prize Web site.

To find that the “G” has hired Welsome as a beat reporter is a little surprising. It’s as unlikely as seeing Jeff Beck lay down riffs with the local boys at Southside Johnny’s … but maybe it’s just a sign of the times.

After all, if the music business were as problematic as the newspaper industry, our local garage band would be fronting Clapton, not Beck.

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 25th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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City Council, Fellini, and Spinal Tap

4

“It’s like a Fellini movie!” said a delighted caller yesterday evening.

I knew what he was talking about  - like me, he was taking a break from the Olympics to watch our intrepid city council members, as they wrestled feebly with issues so bizarre, so unseemly and so surreal that they seemed not just Fellini-esque, but otherworldly.

The once-stately, now tastelessly renovated council chambers, where generations of elected officials have done their best to solve the mundane problems of a small city in the West, are now no more than a stage set, where players in our own theater of the absurd strut their stuff.

SNL and Second City never had such a cast! Samuel Beckett never imagined goings-on so strange!

Shakespeare did.

“… Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

The always good-humored Daniel Chacon from the Gazette was there, doomed to cover the meeting from start to finish.

I wondered what the sainted Mayor Bob Isaac would have made of such goings on. Marijuana dispensaries? Vast tent cities of the homeless? Douglas Bruce ranting incoherently for 50 minutes? Councilmembers hurling insults at each other? Sean Paige and Larry Small squaring off, ready to settle things outside (or so it seemed)?

Maybe it’s just as well that Mayor Bob didn’t live to see this doleful day. He would have been justifiably appalled.

Here are few suggestions for Council:

1. Limit speeches from the public to three minutes. Limit your own remarks from the podium to two minutes.

2. End meetings after four hours, and continue them the next day if necessary. These marathon sessions are not the pure expression of the democratic ideal, but perverse and eccentric, serving only a few bloviators on and off the podium.

3. Stop conducting, enabling and participating in such travesties. Don’t pretend that you’re innocent bystanders - your own learned helplessness has enabled the process.

4. Sean, don’t mess with Larry. He was a Golden Gloves boxer - he could probably still do some serious damage, if he got overly peeved.

If you were a band, you’d be booed off the stage. Take a hint from your crosstown rivals  - let’s call ‘em Denny & the Commissioners. They quietly dealt with the whole marijuana question in three days, without drama, without public fights between commissioners, without dragging John Suthers into the process, and without fanning public hysteria.

Yup, it’s a pretty tight group, even if, like Fleetwood Mac, there may be tensions between band members. Denny H. on drums, Wayne W. on bass, Jimmy B. on lead guitar, Sallie the lead vocalist, and Amy content (for now!) to sing backup vocals. They do a nice clean gig, and they know what audiences want … and that’s all you need from a local garage band.

And you guys? They made a movie about you - it’s called “This is Spinal Tap.” Check it out - aging, irrelevant, delusional metalheads who still think the world is waiting for them to lay down power chords. I can hardly wait for your upcoming world tour.

I’d be there, of course - but I got kicked out of the band years ago.

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 24th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Send money quick!

2

The Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute issued a pair of interesting papers Tuesday, detailing the economic impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as “the stimulus.”

Whether you think that ARRA is a perfect example of a spendthrift government run amok, or a rational federal response to the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, one thing seems clear.

Like it or not, ARRA has a substantial and easily quantified impact. At least 33,000 Coloradans are still employed, thanks to the stimulus, and many more have received tangible benefits. Not sure about the estimate (see below) of 3,834,776 though - my arithmetic says 3,834, 771.

More seriously, such outlandish precision is highly suspect, and tempts one to believe that the rest of the figures may be equally bogus. But even if the numbers are off by 50 or 60 percent, ARRA has made a difference.

As an impecunious geezer/journalist, I was delighted to get a check for $250 as a reward for geezerdom. And rather than save the money, I thought it my patriotic duty to stimulate the economy, particularly that segment represented by my favorite bar/restaurant in Old Colorado City.

Here are a few stats:

At least 33,000 jobs retained or created, including:

• 13,173 through the Department of Transportation

• 3,397 at colleges and universities

• 1,699 in corrections

• 462 in K-12 education

• 421 in weatherization

• 313 at arts organizations

• 281 in science and research

• 250 for water infrastructure improvement

• 71 in law enforcement

Coloradans directly helped: 3,834,776:

• 1.8 million families, Making Work Pay tax credit

• 500,000 one-time $250 Social Security payments

• 463,000 people have had the severity of poverty reduced

• 371,389 people received 13.6 percent increase in food stamps

• 357,767 people received job search assistance

• 306,906 people received extra emergency food assistance

• 196,776 laid-off workers received increased unemployment benefits

• 157,666 homes benefited from upgraded wastewater systems

• 71,904 homes benefited from upgraded drinking-water systems

• 70,000 people lifted above the poverty line

• 52,000 people received increased Pell Grants for college tuition

• 7,000 low-income seniors received extra meals

• 1,929 people received job training

• 1,500 homes were weatherized.

The complete reports are available at http://www.cclponline.org/pubfiles/arra%20state%20budget%20feb16%20final.pdf

http://www.cclponline.org/pubfiles/arra%20fact%20sheet%20final.pdf.

Let’s see-I think I fall into at least three separate categories. I got the $250, which I used for extra meals (including extra glasses of wine), and I had the severity of my poverty reduced. See what a difference $250 makes? And if you think that’s nothing, just send me a check for any amount up to $250. I promise to stimulate the economy, starting tonight at 6 p.m.

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 18th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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We’re number one! Sort of …

1

Let’s see - if residents of Boulder are the happiest folks in America, and residents of Colorado Springs are just a little less cheerful, coming in 37th, what does that mean? I’ll tell you: Absolutely nothing.

These made-up “best place” rankings, which local boosters often point to with such pride, are utter fabrications, invented to boost readership of whatever pub is pushing them.

Let’s say that you own a magazine called “Iguana Fancier,” featuring all things iguana. You note that you’re not getting the circulation that you’d like to see in the Pacific Northwest, although research tells you that the north woods are full of iguana-lovers, who’d love to be part of the “Iguana Fancier” community.
So you run your story: Best cities for iguanas! Seattle at #1, Portland at #2, Boise at #3, Tacoma #4, etc., etc. You get lots of great iguana ink, your circ explodes, iguana lovers find each other, and learn how to care for their beloved lizards for the very small, very insignificant price of a subscription to “Iguana Fancier.”

So, in an effort to boost the circulation of the world’s best business publication, headquartered right here in Colorado Springs, here are the unofficial CSBJ rankings of Colorado Springs in a few as yet unpublicized categories.
1. Best view of Pikes Peak: Colorado Springs! You can scarcely see it from Pueblo or Denver, and it’s invisible from most of Manitou.
2. Most dysfunctional local elected body: Marbella, Spain (last three mayors in jail for corruption!). Colorado Springs isn’t even in the top 100, without a single jailed/indicted elected official - although Tom Gallagher gets points for having a garage that used to be a crack house.

3. Best city park with giant red rocks: We get #1 for the Garden of the Gods, and #3 for Red Rocks open space. Denver gets #2 for its Red Rocks.
4. Site of worst-ever major rock concert: Colorado Springs, The Who, April 9, 2020. Both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend expire on stage, and promoter Aaron Retka refuses to refund ticketholders.
5. Best train service: Colorado Springs, with 21 coal trains passing through town every day, not to mention scheduled passenger service to the top of Pikes Peak!
6. Easiest airport parking, top 100 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas: Colorado Springs!

7. Fewest direct flights, top 100 SMSA’s: #1 Santa Fe (airport closed), #9 Colorado Springs.

8. Most articulate and combative blogger/councilmember, online division: #1 Sean Paige, Colorado Springs!
9. Most drunken 20-somethings in central downtown area, Saturday night division: #1 Colorado Springs, #2 Austin, #3 Boulder, #4 Denver (LoDo only), #5 Santa Monica.
10. City most unfairly reviled by national left-wing media: Colorado Springs!
10a City most unfairly reviled by national right-wing media: Boulder!

11. Most effective right-wing taxophobe: The Dougster (who else?)

12. Looniest elected official, ancient history division: #1 Betty Beedy (remember “normal white Americans”?), #2 Charlie Duke, #3 Cheryl Gillaspie, #4 The Dougster, #5 Mark Sanford, #6 John Edwards … actually we should just expand the list to about 500 names, all of whom would be tied for #1.

13.Greenest city: #1 Colorado Springs - the only city in America to save money and reduce carbon emissions by turning off one-third of the city’s streetlights.

You may think that these rankings are frivolous, biased and inaccurate. Yes they are! But the metrics are impeccable - just ask my iguana.

<- Back to csbj.com

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 17th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Leigh gets rolled

17

In response to pressure from Mayor Lionel Rivera and councilmember Darryl Glenn, real estate broker/announced mayoral candidate Tim Leigh resigned from the Memorial Hospital Commission last Friday.

Here’s the text of Leigh’s resignation letter to Council.

“Dear Mr. Mayor and council members,

I took 2 phone calls on Friday; one from Mayor Rivera and one from Councilman Glenn.  Both men suggested I consider resigning from the Memorial Hospital Commission.

We discussed the important work that the commission is tasked with; and that there can be “no hint” of a conflict of interest.

While it’s true that my wife works as a part-time employee at the hospital (she’s an RN in the NICU who has held that position for nearly 30 years), her employment would have no bearing on my ability actively participate without any bias on the commission.  Frankly, I have more integrity than the inference.

Nonetheless, I respectfully withdraw from membership on the commission so the commission may proceed without any appearance of taint.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, Leigh got rolled. This is the kind of political cut and thrust that’s a routine part of the game.

Here’s how it works: you invent an imagined “conflict of interest,” demand that the person with the conflict resign immediately from whatever position he occupies, sit back and enjoy the fuss. You can’t lose - the poor sap that you’ve accused can either resign, thereby acknowledging either his guilt or his cloddish ignorance of the conflict, or he can soldier on, and watch the media blow it up. And we’re glad to do the dirty work, because nothing pleases our readers more than politicians in trouble.

So let’s look at the alleged conflict.

It’s hard to imagine that the Memorial Commission would recommend any steps that would result in the wholesale dismissal of RNs in the ICU. There’s an acute national shortage of folks with the qualifications to hold such positions, and I’d bet that Leigh’s spouse is routinely recruited by other employers.

I agree that disclosure is appropriate, and I also agree that Leigh may have pre-existing opinions about Memorial that are influenced by his spouse’s employment - but so what? The commission is merely advisory - Council, Memorial’s board and city voters are the decision makers.

In fact, conflicts are frequent and unremarkable among councilmembers and members of council-appointed advisory boards. Darryl Glenn and Randy Purvis are lawyers, Scott Hente is a developer, Jan Martin has a consulting business, and so on. They deal with conflicts by disclosing them and, if the conflict is sufficiently acute, recusing themselves from considering particular issues.

Years ago, then-councilmember Bill Guman was the target of a politically motivated complaint alleging that it was a conflict of interest for his commercial landscaping firm to bid on city projects. The complaint was without merit - individual councilmembers then served without compensation, and had no power to influence the award of city contracts. Nevertheless, Guman was tainted.

In the 30 years that I’ve been following, and participating in, local government, I can only recall one instance of blatant, undisclosed conflict of interest. That was Rivera’s undisclosed financial relationship with developer Ray Marshall, who was chosen to partner with the city in the ill-fated original USOC deal. Marshall has since been indicted by the district attorney on counts unrelated to his involvement with the USOC, and Rivera, although cleared of wrongdoing by the city’s ethics commission, is probably finished with electoral politics.

Rivera, caught between the demands of his job as a financial consultant at UBS and his position as the city’s mayor, managed to get himself in an impossible position. Leigh gracefully withdrew, and suffered little harm.

Tim, just consider this a warning shot across the bow. You’re playing in the big leagues now, and it looks like you just got brushed back with a high, inside fast ball. Dust yourself off, step back up to the plate, and now we’ll see if you can hit a spitter. …

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 15th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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Steel dragons and Brooklyn Dodgers

0

As a kid, I rooted for the Dodgers - not the treacherous, transplanted L.A. Dodgers, but the real Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers. And if you rooted for the star-crossed denizens of Ebbets Field, you also hated the Yankees. The Yankees were everything that the Dodgers weren’t - successful, organized, methodical, relentless, and inevitable. You knew they were going to win - so what was the point of rooting for them?

Rooting for the Yankees, it was said, was like rooting for U.S. Steel, then a sleek industrial titan, the signifier of America’s world economic dominance.

Steel production remains a useful metric, a quick snapshot of the health, diversity and power of a given country’s manufacturing prowess.

During 1900, the United States produced 37 percent of the world’s steel.

109 years later, the figures look a little different. Earlier this month, the World Steel Association estimated that world production during 2009 amounted to 1,199 million metric tons. China accounted for 47 percent of this total, or 563.5 million tons.

The United States produced 58.1 million tons, less than 5 percent of the world total.

It’s easy enough to manipulate statistics, but such figures tell a simple story.

Some things haven’t changed. The Yankees still dominate baseball - but now rooting for them is like rooting for … China?

Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 12th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
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