Mike Watson
Kojak
                             

12/09/02  Mayor Miller is a Bright Light, but she can Short Out.

Do you have a favorite lamp in your living room that makes the room just about perfect?  When the bulb burns out at an inopportune time (like when you don't have a spare bulb handy and you can't immediately replace it), the room is dark and it just annoys you like the dickens.  The lamp is still a great lamp and the room will look right again when you get that new bulb, but you want it bright and right all the time and right now.

Laura Miller is a bright light in this town, and when she gets off track occasionally, it just annoys the dickens out of her fans and tickles her enemies.  

It's frequently said conservatives eat their young.  They fight like crazy to get someone elected, and then expect that person to do everything they want -- and nothing they don't want.  It's as tough keeping a crowd of conservatives in tact as it is finding a cohesive group of liberals.

Before we elected Laura Miller as Mayor, Councilwoman Miller frequently went down rabbit trails that left some of us amazed and confused and annoyed.  Before she was elected to represent District 3 (Oak Cliff), Laura Miller was a Journalist who took no quarter.  She treated her heroes who went astray exactly like some of you want to treat her.  She was crazy about Donna Blumer and Paul Fielding.  She wrote a killer article after Paul's fall from grace that was as much about him hurting her feelings as him possibly doing wrong.

Right now, some folks are annoyed with our Mayor because she has taken some positions this year that don't make sense to them.  Some of her positions don't make sense because we don't have all the facts, which some of her former colleagues in journalism are deliberately not reporting.

I think her no-smoking push is just wacky, but then I'm a fiscal conservative who has a passion for property rights.  I think any restaurant operator has the right to allow patrons to smoke -- even if I don't like it, which I don't.  I am as sensitive to cigarette smoke as anyone -- tears, coughing, disgusting.  When I walk into a place and smell smoke, I leave.  I don't go back.  That's my choice.  

But -- last night, several friends were debating the Mayor's crusade to ban smoking where food is served.  Our host asked a pointed question that changed the direction of the argument.  We had been thinking about the smokers' rights and the restaurant operator's rights, but our host asked about the restaurant staff's rights not to work in a smoke-filled situation.  Airline attendants no longer have to breathe second hand smoke for 3 or more hours at a stretch.  Why is the safety of airline passengers and flight attendants more significant than diners and waitpersons?  Remember the airline which started up that was going to allow smoking?  You probably don't recall the name due to that airline's spectacular short life.

I'm still not on the no smoking bandwagon because we have other priorities right now -- like needing sales tax revenue from bars and restaurants.  We sure don't need more nuisance laws to enforce, when we can't enforce laws prohibiting topless dancers from "doing" their patrons under the table.  We don't have the manpower to get the hookers off the streets, much less out of the topless dance clubs.  The last thing we need to do is enact another law that will only be half-***ed enforced. 

Here's an idea.  Let's prohibit smoking in all the sexually oriented businesses in town and see how it works.  I bet there won't be much drop-off in business.  Those perverts are going to go gawk at and/or get serviced by those whores whether they can light up or not.  If there is a substantial drop-off in business for the sex clubs, we might not want to risk costing our restaurant operators some customers.  If there is no drop-off of business in the smoke-free sex clubs (which there probably won't be), that will pretty much blow smoke on those warning of world ending consequences if we ban smoking where food is served.

It does bother me that a bunch of council members who are not in the restaurant business can tell someone they must prohibit smoking in their facility.  I just don't remember the last time I walked into a nice restaurant and anyone was lighting up.  I was at an IHOP Saturday morning and saw nary a flame.  This is much ado about nothing, and it irritates me.  We don't enforce occupancy restrictions in single family homes and that irritates me, too.

My being irritated does not mean I don't think Laura Miller is doing a great job.  I disagree with her efforts to change city employees SIP raises and change their right to accumulate unused sick time to be taken in a cash payment at retirement, but she must ask the questions.  She's the Mayor.  

We are flat broke, and our Mayor is facing it head on.  That former Mayor would be off on some junket rather than looking for solutions to our dilemma.  Every major company in the country that wants to stay in business is looking at every area of their operations where they can cut costs.  Like most businesses, a huge hunk of the city's budget goes to payroll and employee benefits.  Our Mayor would be derelict if she did not look at every cost as something that could be reduced.  Our City MisManager is derelict because he has failed to do so.

When airlines are begging their employees to take salary cuts or accept freezes and the employees go along to save their jobs, it should register with city personnel that we have a money problem right now.  That said, the city should keep the commitment of paying for unused sick time.  However, we might go to a system to where a retiring employee  moves his departure date up per accumulated sick or comp time.  Or, we might freeze the program at 12/31/02.  An employee would be reimbursed at retirement for unused sick leave before that date.  

If Susan Smith never takes sick leave, the city does not have to spend money for someone to cover her assignments.  It is in the city's best interest for Susan to be on the job, rather than an inexperienced substitute covering for her or forcing another employee to pull double duty.  So, yes, an employee who never calls in sick should get some compensation when Mary Martin takes all of her sick days every year and costs the city in time and efficiency with her absences.

I don't know whether a retiring employee gets paid for unused sick time at the rate of his salary when he accrued the time or when  he is leaving.  If it's the latter, that's a double whammy, but it might cost more to track the $ value of the sick leave than to pay at the higher rate.  It would be cheaper to reimburse employees every January 1 for unused sick leave in the previous year than to let people like Ted Benavides accrue 70 days of sick leave and pay him for those days at a salary rate much higher than when he accumulated the time.  

Another way to save money would be to eliminate management from the accrued sick leave program altogether.

Crazy William Hopkins, who is almost always at council meetings, frequently inquires if the City MisManager is out playing golf.  Ted and that Former Mayor apparently did a lot of management discussing on the golf course.  Was TB paid for playing golf?  

The Mayor is asking hard questions because she takes her job seriously.  She takes spending our tax money seriously.  Some of the bond proposals that seemed so outrageous may have just been a "wish" list and will not be in the final bond package.  So, you can stop attacking her for that, too.

We are so accustomed to mayors doing stuff behind closed doors that we cannot cope with this new light at City Hall.  As creatures of habit, we get very annoyed when someone breaks our routine -- no matter how much we needed to change that routine.  

I sent out a Thanksgiving Note to some friends and said:

I believe Laura Miller is trying to do good.  Do I think she has made some mistakes?  Absolutely!  But, was your 2002 error-free?  

Last week, Mike Watson blasted Mayor Miller, and I printed his comments.  Jason Roberts who lives in Oak Cliff near the Mayor has responded.  See Mike Watson for both positions.  Jason makes a point that Casie Pierce said last week:  

Laura Miller does not need me to defend her.  You need me to help you prioritize.   We are much better off with Laura Miller as our mayor than was our situation for the past 6 horrible years of tyranny under the regime of that Former Mayor.  She does and will make mistakes, because she makes an effort to try to fix things.  We did not elect her to play Annette Strauss and just do public relations for us.  We wanted her to try to fix things.  We may not like her solutions, but she is working her rear off trying to turn this city around.

In answer to one of Jim Schutze's frequent attack Miller pieces -- No, she has not gone to the dark side.  She is listening and learning and occasionally screwing up.  At least when she does something we don't like, we know it's not for self-gain.  We may not understand her reasoning, but we know it's not to line her pocket.

I am very glad that Laura Miller is our Mayor.  I wish she would listen to me more, but that's what everyone else wants, too.  We voted for Laura because we wanted someone different.  She is different.  She has confidence in herself, and she has doubts.

We have been and are still in a dark, dark hole.  If anyone is going to light the way for us to climb out of it, it will be Mayor Miller.  That said, it may be we are on a sinking ship and no one can save us.  

Which is your preference?  Get behind the Mayor and let her know when you disagree with her?  Or, cut her off at the knees and wait for everything to collapse?

I'm sticking with the Mayor.