OUCH!

[Alternate title: The Vote on the TRC That Should Never Have Been Forced Upon Us]

Here it is 2AM and sleep is not going to come anytime soon. I might as well blog and get this out of my system instead of tossing and turning. Let's hope I am coherent enough after that 7-hour council marathon to explain what happened - and hope I don't later regret what I write.

The original resolution was nothing more than a feel-good, namby-pamby statement that had no real substance beyond "the shootout was a bad thing and we don't want anything like that to happen again." So how did we end up passing a motion to "oppose the TRC" on a divisive 6-3 vote after everyone of us had previously expressed our disgust and sorrow that the shootout ever occurred in the first place?

The short answer is "lack of trust" -
* lack of trust in the process itself as I have articulated ad nauseum in previous posts,

* lack of trust in the way media would interpret any resolution, no matter how benign, based on past performances,

* lack of trust in the GTCRP and how that endorsement action would be manipulated to denote much, much more,

* and saddest of all, my loss of trust in a fellow councilmember who violated a negotiated agreement when she introduced a resolution councilmembers had mutually agreed would not be introduced. [Please note my clarification and apology on this point.]

There's no need to expound on the first two; I think they are pretty clear. But the last two need some further explanation.

My concern about how the GTCRP would "use" any positive action is based on their previous behavior when Mayor Holliday named Judge Lawrence McSwain to the commission selection committee. The Mayor was quite reluctant to get involved in that early process since he did not want it to be interpreted as supporting the TRC . Upon assurances by some members of the GTCRP that such participation would not be used to suggest that he was in support, he appointed Judge McSwain to participate. It didn't take long at all before various written and oral comments started coming from the GTCRP to the effect of "See, the mayor is supporting this effort by making this appointment." So much for their assurances! I adhere to the old adage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!"

I was absolutely shocked that Claudette forced a vote on this issue by introducing the resolution. The mayor had been meeting with 2-3 councilmembers at a time over the past several days to work out a compromise solution and avoid splitting the council with a negative outcome. In fact, he actually wrote the resolution that was introduced in hopes that we could get a 9-0 vote in suppport of it and present a unified front. However, opposition to that resolution was expressed by a couple of folks so he scrapped that idea. The final "gentleman's agreement" that I understood was that we would each express our own heartfelt opinions on the subject and let it go at that with no motions at all being made. That would let the public know how we felt individually without officially "torpedo-ing" the TRC process. Unfortunately the agreement was violated, and we now have to live with the consequences.

This did not have to happen! I know that NONE OF US ARE HAPPY ABOUT THE RESULTS -- EVERYBODY LOST ON THIS ONE. It's issues like this that makes me absolutely hate politics sometimes.