By Curmudgeon
There is a remarkable op-ed piece in this morning's Standard Examiner. It is by John "Our Hearts Are Pure" Patterson, Mayor Godfrey's Chief Administrative Officer. It is largely an attack --- a public attack --- on Councilman Garcia , denying that the Administration has engaged in public attacks on "Jesse." [Throughout the piece, Mr. Patterson refers to Councilman Garcia dismissively as "Jesse."]
The main thrust of Mr. Patterson's public attack relates to several gang control ordinances the Administration wanted passed some years ago, during the period Councilman Garcia was head of the Council. Mr. Patterson complains that the Council did not adopt the ordinances rapidly enough. Here's what happened next, according to Mr. Patterson:
A frustrated police official raised the repeated concern about the lack of progress on the ordinances and suggested it was because Jesse had a gang-involved son. I passed that on to Councilman Brandon Stephenson, who confronted Jesse in a May 14, 2007, e-mail. Within eight weeks, after seven months of waiting for Jesse to place them on an agenda, the ordinances were passed.So, because the Council was taking more time to examine the proposed ordinances than the Administration liked, Mr. Patterson passed on a rumor involving a family member of Mr. Garcia from an un-named "police official" to the Godfrey administration's most compliant shill on the Council, Mr. Stephenson, who then obediently "confronted" Councilman Garcia with the anonymous rumor, and... and what? Hinted that if he didn't move the ordinances to adoption, and damn fast, the anonymous rumor would be revealed? What other possible purpose could there have been to Mr. Stephenson "confronting" Mr. Garcia with Patterson's anonymous rumor?
Two months later --- not two weeks, but two months --- the Council adopted the substance of the gang control ordinances. Mr. Patterson seems fact proud of his whispering the anonymous rumor into the compliant ear of Councilman Stephenson, and offers his passing it on to Mr. Stephenson on the sly as proof that there was no "public" attack on Councilman Garcia.
An anonymous rumor involving a family member of the Council head, slipped quietly to the Administration's most spineless lackey on the Council hoping to move ordinances to adoption more quickly: that's what the Mayor's CAO did. And he's proud of having done it.
Proud.
"Pureheart" Patterson has indeed indicted someone by his SE op-ed piece this morning: himself and the Administration he works for.
These are not honorable people.
