In city politics, this is the season — less than a year before the next elections — when collegiality degenerates into crustiness and backscratching yields to backstabbing.
There’s plenty of friction among several council members these days, particularly between two of the five who are running for mayor — Councilman Scott Taylor and Councilman Scott Wagner.
You might have read that Taylor recently introduced a controversial “ethics ordinance.” Among other things, the ordinance would eliminate all but token gifts to council members; would extend from one to two years a “revolving door” regulation barring former city officials from doing business at City Hall; and would limit council travel to two trips per four-year term.
It also calls for the full council to approve all council members’ travel requests. As it is, the mayor pro tem — Wagner — approves council members’ travel requests. When Wagner wants to take a city-financed trip, he must get approval from the mayor’s office.
Within the past 10 months, Wagner has taken city-financed trips to China, Germany and Poland, which could make him vulnerable to charges of extravagant travel.
At last week’s council meeting, Taylor and Wagner engaged in a testy exchange, and afterwards The Star’s City Hall reporter, Bill Turque, requested travel records for every council member during the current term, which dates to 2015.
So, I think we can expect to see a substantive story on the subject in the coming days or weeks, and the result is likely to be that Wagner will have some explaining to do.
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Taylor
Taylor, undoubtedly, introduced the ordinance with the goal of advancing his own political career while damaging the prospects of others. Taking it a step further, he may well have had Wagner in mind when he proposed the travel-related changes because he might view Wagner as the biggest threat to beating him out of a spot in the June 2019 general election.
The city primary election will be held next April, and, as I wrote last month, the vote is going to be widely dispersed if all nine candidates currently in the hunt remain in the race.
Everyone thinks the most recent entrant into the race, Jason Kander, will probably win the primary and that the second spot will be up for grabs. That’s the spot the other eight contestants are focusing on because once the race is down to two people, the media attention and fundraising will tend to even out.
Taylor is a strong contender for the second spot, based primarily on the fact that he has raised a lot of money. Wagner is also a strong contender for the second spot, based on the facts that he is the only Northland resident in the race and is very popular there. Among all nine candidates, he is positioned to win the biggest chunk of any particular, large geographic area.
So, it wouldn’t surprise me if Taylor had Wagner in mind when he drafted the travel-related proposals in his ordinance.
Wagner
Last week, I spoke with Wagner about this, and he acknowledged it could put him on the defensive. “I knew a story like this could come out,” he said.
When I asked him if he thought Taylor was directing the travel dimension of the ordinance at him, Wagner tried to brush it aside, saying, “You can get a headache that way” — that is, worrying about being targeted.
Taylor’s main motivation, he said, probably was trying to establish “some political separation” between himself and the other council members, particularly the other mayoral candidates on the council.
Wagner defended his relatively extensive travel record, saying, “If we are a global city, we’d better act like it; you can’t do it by phone. To create relationships, you have to do it one on one.”
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While Wagner may be able to mount a strong rationale for his international travel (he told me the number of trips he has paid for out of his own pocket outstrips the number he has taken on taxpayer money), political travel has long been a sore spot with many voters, who tend to regard most trips as junkets.
“Junket” is a nasty word in politics, and when one politician can effectively stick it on a competitor, it can be very damaging. Before this is all over, Scott Wagner might wish he had spent more time in the Northland and less overseas.
More power to Scott Taylor and his ethics ordinance. I’ve always found junkets by elected leaders to be a flagrant waving of one’s privilege and an abuse of tax dollars. When I covered the Northland for The Star from 1999 to 2008, there were some council members who were constantly traveling to “conferences.” I never bought the “we need to travel because we’re a global city that needs to network” line. I think they simply wanted to see the world and this was the only way they could do that. On the flip side, I’m fine with city employees going to conferences and meetings out of town if it helps them grow in their job. But city council positions are, for the most part, voluntary positions. Also, I’ve seen my share of council members and state legislators get jobs/consulting contracts with the cities or states they used to lead. It makes those entities look very exclusive.
I agree. The most important thing, in my opinion, is for elected officials to be in whatever jurisdiction they’re serving and keeping their fingers on the pulse of the communities, districts or jurisdictions they’re representing.
A big vote Scott Wagner missed when traveling to China last September was the ordinance approving the city’s contract with Edgemoor for a new terminal. Now, the vote ended up being 10-2, so his absence, very fortunately, turned out to not be pivotal, but nevertheless that was a big vote to miss. It was one of the most important votes of the last eight years, in fact.