Newbie councillor Ron Ellsworth wants to replace Doc O'Keefe as deputy mayor of St. John's.
Doc will be going after the mayor's chair to replace Andy Wells.
Okay.
Doc is probably best known lately for the entirely childish game of trying to wring an apology out of Ellsworth for something that wasn't even worth mentioning.
When O'Keefe isn't chasing his tail, he's talking about stuff like gas prices - which city council can do nothing about - or flip flopping on snow clearing.
Ron Ellsworth would be a fine replacement for Doc O'Keefe. 'Round these parts, the opinion used to be different, but the longer Ellsworth been in public view, the less impressive he's turned out to be. His lame-assed excuses during the now infamous secret salary raise caper turned out to closer to real attitude to public money.
Thus far on council, the Ward 4 fellow has shown himself to be a less than stellar performer. For a guy who keeps trying to play at being a fiscally responsible councillor, he turned into an apologist for pouring millions of public money into the Wells-Coombs Memorial Money Pit, a.k.a Mile One.
Ellsworth said that as a businessman he wouldn't drop a dime on the thing since it will never turn a profit. But as a councillor he's willing to pour millions of your tax dollars and mine into the loser. CBC has it right, if by "fiscally minded" they mean that Ellsworth doesn't mind overburdening the fiscal capacity of taxpayers with wasteful spending, like Mile One.
On that count alone, Ellsworth would show himself to be a fitting replacement for Doc as deputy mayor.
That is, it would be enough if we didn't know that Ron commissioned a poll a while back testing the waters for his real goal: a run at the mayor's chair.
CBC radio asked Ron about the poll.
Ron denied knowing anything about it.
Then a couple of days later he recovered his memory and fessed up.
Interesting in hindsight that Ellsworth, who is reputedly tight with the Premier, commissioned the poll on his own political future - and then fibbed about it - around the same time that the Public Service Commission posted ads looking for new public utilities commissioners and a chief executive officer.
That's the competition that ultimately went in the dustbin.
Andy Wells was subsequently appointed to the PUB's top job, sans the conveniently halted competition.
Anyway, to make sure there is no misunderstanding:
There's just no way Ron Ellsworth deserves to be re-elected as a councillor let alone deputy mayor.
His performance over the last year or so as a councillor has shown he's just like the majority on council. They have managed to leave the city in a fiscally-sorry, undemocratic state. He's shown his willingness to continue the bad practices of the past and he hasn't made any positive changes at the same time.
Fibbing about the poll and his scripted media interviews don't help persuade that Ellsworth is anything other than packaged.
The city needs a substantive change.
Andy Wells' departure started it.
Electing Ron Ellsworth as deputy mayor - let alone the prospect of His Worship the Doc - would demolish any chance of improving city council.
-srbp-