UPDATE: It’s going to get worse before it gets better

I was just thinking about this after the vote on Tuesday night;

It took Mayor Mike Huether’s tie-breaking vote this week to make it harder to win City Council elections.

The city’s top executive rarely casts votes on City Council matters, but it’s been happening at a greater clip since four new members were voted onto the 8-member legislative body last year.

And I guarantee you are going to see more of it. I suspect that since Mike, Michelle and Rex are lame ducks* they are going to be proposing ‘wish-list’ legislation all the way until the end of their terms, especially with Rex’s  success on Tuesday night, it will only embolden them. They have been salivating for awhile to get rid of public input and I also know that they are not fans of transparency. It will be interesting to watch what other crazy ordinances they propose, or what crazy ones pass. I suspect that many of them would be overturned by the next council, like the recent election threshold.

I told several councilors to prepare themselves for the onslaught.

UPDATE: It’s interesting Munson used his ties on budget or procedural issues primarily. Huether has used his in retribution, anti-citizen or plaything spending. Spreadsheet from 2006; Mayoral-tie-2006

*While Rex and Michelle have probably put death nails in their future plans for elected office, there is still a scenario for Huether. While I strongly feel that Huether really needed to announce his candidacy for governor last month, he may be looking at another approach. The primary isn’t until June. Could Huether think he really doesn’t need to officially jump into this until he absolutely has to? You never know.