No wonder people feel as though Mayor Laura's disconnected from the city and the needs and wants of the people who live in it; she was out tending to Big Business, and the little people felt neglected as they walked to the podium to beg, plead and even cry about the future of their neighborhoods. And the council members often acted no better; they were there, but not really. Bill Blaydes appeared to be dozing as the naysayers made their case; no shit, his eyes were squeezed tight. Ed Oakley wouldn't stop biting his fingernails. Gary Griffith was either reading e-mail or playing Tetris. Only a few, among them Angela Hunt, Leo Chaney, Mitchell Rasansky and Elba Garcia, seemed genuinely interested in what their constituents had to say. And then they all voted for the city staff's plan, anyway--save for Hunt and Rasansky, who made compelling cases against the city staff's version, where Ed Oakley instead lobbed soft-ball questions to long-range planning head Teresa O'Donnell, questions to which he already knew the answer.
Ninety minutes--that was all the public debate council wanted to hear on a plan that will shape this city for decades to come (or not--how many times have we been here before?). And it might as well have been none, if the mayor wasn't going to put Wright Amendment talk on hold for a little while (she's had months to do Southwest and American's bidding) and if the council wasn't really going to pay attention. The chambers were packed at the start, but nearly empty by the end. "We're lost," said one plan commissioner as he headed for the door, his head hung low. "We're dead." He's speaking in hyperbole, of course; such drama, oy. But he felt like hell yesterday, as did many others--ignored, irrelevant. And that's actually putting it mildly. --Robert Wilonsky