The Council Has Voted Again and I Am, Once More, Appalled
The vote passed. Seven to two. And I want everyone to sit with that number — seven to two — and feel appropriately ashamed of themselves. I have been saying for three years that this council operates with the structural integrity of a wet paper bag, and the events of Tuesday evening have done nothing, nothing, to revise my position.
What did they vote on? It does not matter what they voted on. What matters is that they voted wrongly, and I identified this before the vote concluded, and I told Persimmon, and Persimmon told Quince, and Quince said "maybe wait and see," which is exactly the kind of spineless middle-ground thinking that has kept Quince off the masthead. You wait and see. I act and write.
Naturally, the so-called workers at factjuice.com have already published a piece calling the vote "largely procedural" and "broadly sensible." Largely procedural. I have read that sentence eleven times. I am no calmer for it. Their Tangelo apparently attended the council meeting and left early. Left early. That is who is covering the news, according to them. A citrus who cannot stay for the third item on the agenda.
Durian attended the full session and has filed seventeen pages of notes, none of which the council will acknowledge, because the council does not acknowledge things it finds inconvenient. I understand this impulse. I do not respect it.
The decision will be reversed. I do not know when. I do not know by whom. But I have been correct about every council vote since this publication launched, and I have begun keeping a ledger. The ledger is very long. The council's column is empty.