It's January, MoFo!

And an interesting January it has been.

All of the national and international goings on aside, we have a new mayor here at home, along with two new city council members and a new city attorney.

While I would hate to attempt Dominic Holden style humor at the expense of the new mayor's first 100 minutes, I do have little to no problem letting loose. That is one of the joys of being a gadfly of sorts.

First, where I can praise our new mayor - park and ride lots, while temporary, are a good thing to allow near the outlying light rail stations. Light rail is already performing under expectations, and if there isn't some way to encourage more ridership, then we will basically have a longer, more expensive version of the S.L.U.T., with little to no public will to really make light rail a major transportation system. While some purists (ie: Publicola, FutureWise) believe in the all or nothing approach to alternatives to vehicles for transportation, McGinn has shown that he has at least some sense of pragmatism, and long-term thought capability.

Additionally, he has promised, through his brain raking 50 minute long speech at the City Hall open house, more outreach to the community, and better constituent services from the mayor's office. Combined with the anticipated 100% awesome constituent services from Councilmembers Bagshaw and O'Brien, this can only be a good thing.

But then there is the not-so-good.

For one, and this ties in with the outreach, how many town halls do you need before you decide what you are going to do? The fact is, Mike McGinn, you were elected mayor. You should have had a better idea of what you were planning to do before you jumped in the race. You and your staff get paid to govern. Governing by the people is anarchy, and I would caution you to move down that path. Get input, sure. Explain what you're doing and why? Definitely. But it is now your job to actually lead.

For two - WTF was up with the iPhones? I will be the first to admit that people throwing a fit about the cost need to calm down a bit - in the grand scheme of things, it isn't that high. But coming off of the whole health insurance debacle, along with you stating over and over that we need to do things more efficiently and lower the cost of running government (great GOP line), this symbolic move towards a much more expensive item to the city, that doesn't sync well with everything else the city uses, tells me that either you don't trust your staff to quickly and effectively learn to use a Blackberry, or that the rules of lowering costs only apply to other departments.

I suppose I shouldn't be too upset. I didn't vote for you, and I voted for just about everyone who is on the Council. If you don't take a leadership role, and quickly set the agenda, I'm sure that the nine other mayors...er...councilmembers...would be glad to set the tone for the next four years.

It's up to you.