Drama in the Council Chambers

The Herald reported yesterday that Lynnwood's Finance Director, John Moir, abruptly left the council chambers at a council meeting last Wednesday, apparently indignant at a question posed to him by Councilwoman Lonergan. I have to admit, my first reaction to the article was to laugh. The scene depicted struck me as pretty comic. Just reading the transcript, my take-away was that the councilwoman was trying to insinuate that he's fallen down on a committment he'd made to have financials available at that meeting, and was calling into question his professionalism and competency, whereupon he told her in so many words to go shove it and just got up and left in high dudgeon.

The difficulty or impossibility of indicating tone of voice in print reporting is something that's plagued print media forever, so kudos to The Herald for making the audio of that meeting available on their website. (It's also available on the city's website, here.) Having listened to it, I can no longer fault Lonergan, who seems to have mistakenly called Moir on something he never promised, whereupon she offered her apologies but he flew off the deep end anyway, and ran off in a huff.

But, whatever. Listen for yourself and draw your own conclusions. We could fill a warehouse with what we don't know about the backstory here. The more important issue is that the city's financial outlook is obviously just as grim as, or worse than we've been led to believe. Enough so that the pressure that electeds and their staffs are feeling is beginning to show in embarrassing, public ways like this little drama. It's no surprise that everybody will be seeking to cover their own asses while trying to deflect blame for the current state of affairs anywhere but upon them.

For my part, I find the situation to be pretty clear. The handwriting was on the wall that the economy was faltering for long enough that plenty of steps could have been taken to mitigate the inevitable impact on the city's tax revenues. Nevertheless, what have we seen? Taxpayer money being flushed down the crapper hand over fist for such frivolous non-essentials as refurbishing the city's recreation center and paying consultants to come up with a "brand" for the city, and a council frittering away it's time deciding how many inches long residents may allow their grass to grow before being fined by code enforcement.

The city needs to be taking one damn hard look at where cuts can be made. The $80,000 thrown away on the "brand" is gone for good, but suspending work on the rec center fiasco would be one possibility. Furlough days for city workers would be another, along with suspension of projects that are non-essential.