I like Mayor Sam Kooiker, maybe that is why I really didn’t say much until now about his suggested appointment for police chief that failed RC city council;
The council last week rejected Lt. Elias Diaz for the chief’s job, citing a lack of experience, a flawed selection process and a lack of overall transparency on behalf of Mayor Sam Kooiker in choosing who he felt was the right candidate.
While I think some on the RC City Council are from LuLu Libertarian Tea bag land, they made the right decision to reject Sam’s appointment, for all of the reasons above. That is what the legislative body of municipal government is supposed to do. They are the checks and balances for the taxpayers. When the mayor is making a bad decision, or appointing people based on political reasons, the council needs to step up and do their job.
The SF city council could learn a lot from this incident in RC, like how they are supposed to question the administration and city directors when they make ignorant decisions. But first they would have to throw away their rubber stamps and stop taking campaign contributions from the same people/companies our mayor does.
Objective is not the word I would use to describe our city council, more like selective.