This question has come up a lot with me from foot soldiers and political friends.
I try not to think about it too much, because I am so glad he is no longer in leadership, but I will try to break this down. I think the positives would outweigh the negatives;
POSITIVES
• Hardworker. I could never argue with the fact that B&B was a 24/7 employee. I guarantee he would have not taken off a single weekend until we got through this crisis and would have worked at it every day putting in long hours.
• B&B was not afraid to make hard decisions, right or wrong. He was pretty resolute when he made a decision and would not backdown from it, even if it was tragically wrong.
• He would follow expert’s plans and emergency management manuals. B&B knew he wasn’t an expert about a lot of things and would rely on the knowledge of others to implement the best plan. Of course, he would still take credit for it. He leaned on his directors a lot during a crisis, we saw this with the ice storm. This is what leaders do. Lincoln was a great example of this. B&B was no Lincoln though.
• He would find a way to balance business and government. In other words he would have not taken a heavy hand, but would have been strong about getting businesses to do preventive things. I also think he would have acted much, much earlier.
• He would have put city employees to work, helping business to secure safety by redirecting them to do other job duties. B&B would have never let a single city employee slouch during this unless they had underlying health conditions.
• B&B was not afraid to take legal risks. He did this during the entire 8 years he was mayor. Laws? We don’t need no stinking laws. He certainly would not have been a wilting flower when it comes to our Governor and her box of rocks for a brain.
NEGATIVES
• B&B would have taken advantage of the situation for business opportunities for himself and friends. We would have never heard about it because those plans would have taken place behind closed doors. City councilor Brekke said it best recently, ‘During a time of crisis there will be Heros and there will be Scoundrels.’ He would have worn both badges – proudly.
• He would have used the crisis to promote himself. We saw this during ‘Operation Timberstrike’.
• B&B would have used the opportunity to use his authoritarian powers under home rule charter to the fullest extent.
• He would not have bothered to consult the majority of the council to get buy in. He would have garnered the four votes he needed and steamrolled the rest of them.
• He would use the opportunity to bilk taxpayers more in the future with hidden and not so apparent tax and fee increases and unnecessary bonding.
• Lastly, he would have used the crisis to be even less transparent and lie to the public about what is going on behind the scenes to put a ‘positive’ spin on the situation.
But I will be honest with you, during this time of crisis if I had a choice between the last guy or the current guy, I would pick the last one.
How truly sad is our options?
What I want to know is why PTH doesn’t know the age of two of his three kids? So odd.
