Published: December 13, 2006 08:43 am            

Council fiasco par for the course

A new Somerset City Council will be ushered in next month.

Wanna know why? Look no further than the ridiculous antics of Monday’s meeting — the final regularly-scheduled meeting of the current administration.

A segment of the council — the pro-JP Wiles faction — came up with an 11th-hour ordinance designed to keep Mayor-elect Eddie Girdler from firing Wiles loyalists from the minute he walked into his new office at City Hall.

Then, as a reaction to the bombshell which hit them squarely between the eyes, the anti-Wiles group went ballistic.

Things got ugly.

When councilor John Ricky Minton told longtime Wiles nemesis Clarence Floyd exactly what he thought of him, Floyd countered by saying city building inspector Denny Crist should be “on the back of a garbage truck.”

After the meeting, Crist was looking to take Floyd’s head off. I don’t blame him.

Not only did Floyd offend Crist, obviously, but he also shed a negative light on the hard-working folks who work for the sanitation department. Maybe Clarence should try working on the back of a garbage truck. My guess is that he’d have a new respect for the people who do.

Quite frankly, it made city voters look remarkably visionary in their strange decision to dismiss not only Wiles, but also the anti-Wiles councilors who fought him so bitterly.

Wiles. Gone.

Floyd. Gone.

Jerry Wheeldon. Gone.

Joann Norfleet. Gone.

Caught in the upheaval were two of the more sensible councilors, Mark Beasley and Fonda Crawford, who were also defeated on Election Night.

The message is clear — city residents want no more of this laughable governing body which continues to embarrass its citizens.

My question remains — Will things get any better in January?

The flip side of this “throw everyone out” movement is this: With Girdler defeating Wiles, but many of the pro-Wiles faction winning new seats on the council, the split seems to remain firmly intact.

As for the ordinance proposed on Monday, it really accomplishes very little. It makes one wonder if it was worth the fireworks display it set off.

Girdler will still have absolute power to mold his own administration. He will choose to either retain, or replace, his department heads.

The mayor-elect may have to jump through a few hoops — but if he wants to oust someone badly enough, he will.

And so it goes.

Norfleet made an interesting point. When Wiles came into office, he made some changes.

All newly-elected mayors do. It’s a right of passage.

But she was wrong in one regard.

She said “the bogeyman would get” Wiles and his supporters for “lying” about the ordinance’s origin.

Joann, if the bogeyman got every lying politician, Washington would be a ghost town.

        

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