The Sustainability Inaction Plan

Let me just start by saying that last night’s City Council meeting was a joke. I really don’t know how someone like Richard Rush manages to sit through that maddening bullshit week after week, playing Kif Kroker to the rest of the council’s Zapp Brannigan. The guy is going to have to be institutionalized after a few more years of this.

Yes, the Sustainability Action Plan did pass but not simply and not intact (Story: "Sustainability plan gets cool acceptance," Spokesman.com). The Plan was amended by council member Mike Allen to state that the council was merely “accepting” the plan and not adopting it and there also seemed to be some other language with regard to analyzing the economic impact of each point prior to any adoption in the future.

Anyhow, watching that bullshit last night put me in a bad mood today. So, let me take it out on a few select individuals involved with last night’s exercise in stupidity.

First off, we have Bob Apple. Mr. Apple’s inclusion on the council is obviously a testament to our city’s open-mindedness. For someone with such an obvious cognitive impairment to actually be elected to the city council speaks volumes. Mr. Apple also spoke volumes; unfortunately, most observers had no fucking idea what he was talking about. All that was clear was that he just “couldn’t” support the plan.

Then we had the person offering the amendment, Mike Allen. I understand that Mr. Allen is going to get the word “centrist” tattooed on his forehead and begin attending future city council meetings painted half blue and half red. Just to show how “centrist” and “pragmatic” he really is. He’s a “fiscal conservative,” you know? He is. Just ask him and he’ll tell you over and over and over again. It seems Mr. Allen’s re-election campaign began in earnest last night.

The Tinfoil Hat Brigade, lead by John Ahern and Cindy Zapotocky (sadly Gloria Clark wasn’t available to tell us about how bad French people smell) reiterated their past comments on the plan. Ahern continued his focus on the economic cost of the plan (wouldn’t want anyone to think he was a nut!) and Zapotocky continued her focus on her own GOP talking points, which included laughable comments about global warming that Ms. Zapotocky obviously picked up during her time at Google University.

And last, but not least, Nancy McLaughlin was just embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch. Watching her read off her list of “scientists” who are climate change “skeptics” and her talk about “global cooling” was simply painful. You remember those presentations in 7th grade, where people got up in front of the class and basically read what they had copied out of the encyclopedia the night before and obviously had no idea what the fuck they were talking about? That was McLaughlin last night. Nancy McLaughlin actually made Bob Apple sound intelligent and coherent.

Now, there actually is a silver lining to last night’s celebration of ignorance: Both Allen and McLaughlin are up for reelection this year (Apple isn’t up again until 2011). So, we have the opportunity to cut some dead weight from the council. Hopefully we will see some quality candidates step up and challenge these two.

Perhaps with some more intellectually-inclined council members, plans such as the Sustainability Action Plan might get an honest look and council meetings might better resemble the "marketplace of ideas" model as opposed to the "marketplace of posturing and pseudoscience" model we suffered through last night.

I'll have a bit more to say on this mess a little later...