Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Heads - You Lose!
After about an hour or so of listening to the residents of Sierra Madre who had come down to participate in the democratic process, making often impassioned speeches stating the reasons why they thought our next mayor should be Council Member Joe Mosca or Mayor Pro Tem Maryann MacGillivray, Council Member Don Watts ultimately decided that neither the opinions of the electorate nor the democratic process would have the final say in selecting the mayor. Watts, the self-acknowledged swing vote on the decision, told the people of Sierra Madre that he had made his choice based on the flip of a lucky nickel that he has had for 42 years, since he found it under the bed he slept on above a torpedo while serving in the Navy. The coin toss came up heads, and Watts said that in a previous conversation he had asked Mosca whether he wanted to be heads or tails. Mosca had replied tails. So Watts voted for MacGillivray as Mayor, along with MacGillivray and outgoing Mayor Kurt Zimmerman. Mayor MacGillivray then nominated the coin-tossing Councilman to be our Mayor Pro Tem, and the Council voted unanimously to make Watts the City's second in command elected official. No, this is not April fools. It's the current state of Sierra Madre politics.
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We all lose. Another year of being ashamed of the leadership of this town.It is so sad that all the blogs shut down after the last election
ReplyDeleteand the only one out there is John Crawford talking/ranting to himself.I despair that freedom died with the toss of a coin...........
Ashamed is the word, or maybe shameful is better. Shameful that Zimmerman and MacGillivray, two seemingly intelligent people would go along with this method of making an important decision for the city. Shameful that they actually seemed to be pleased by this ridiculous carefree choice. Shameful that we now have a mayor pro-tem who actually believes that a nickel he found 42 years ago carries some magical power to aid him in making the important decisions. Well there you go Sierra Madre, your tax dollars at work..........
ReplyDeleteSue Levoe
To Quote Dr Laura's book that made us infamous.
ReplyDelete" We are willing to sacrifice what is noble and right for families to accommodate individuals who don't do right or behave nobly-
all in the name of tolerance" A glimmer of hope that someone would do the right thing is sold for a nickle.
It was a joke, you knuckleheads. Don's vote was with MaryAnn all along. You really think Watts was going to vote for the guy who sold out Sierra Madre and betrayed the people who elected him? Mosca is now a two time loser, and the title is well deserved. And if all the solace you sore losers can find in this is misinterpreting an off the cuff statement by someone who was trying to defuse some of the tension in the room, then obviously you're just lost in this world.
ReplyDeleteOh dear me. It looks like the Downtown Investors Club has gotten together for a little pity party.
ReplyDeleteNot nice, Mr. Bill. You've taken a statement out of context and treated it like it was all the person in question said. Nothing at all about what Don had to say about the damaging effects of subjecting Sierra Madre to the agendas of statewide political organizations like the corrupt California Democratic Party? And its imported operatives like Mr. Mosca? No, of course not. That would have been the honest way of reporting the issue, and far be it from you to indulge us in anything like that.
ReplyDeleteHow about the impassioned speeches of the people Joe Mosca took money, time and trust from, Bill Coburn?
ReplyDeleteBarbara Cline, Shirley Moore,Carol Parker and others? How about us, Bill Coburn?
I agree with poster MHI. The California Democratic Party had no damn business interferring in our city politics.
I was a registered Democrat until the Young Dems of the San Fernando Valley called me and told me to vote ONLY FOR JOE MOSCA in 2006.
Several other friends of mine, all registered Democrats got phone calls from the Democratic Party of Los Angeles telling them NOT to vote for MaryAnn MacGillivray in 2008. One of them happened to have been one of MaryAnn's campaign managers, Debbie Sheridan. Didn't set well with Debbie or her son, who was very active in the Dems of L.A. Debbie and her son, both quit the party and registered as Independents.
Another well known lady in town also changed her party registration to Independent due to these calls.
Don Watts is a registered Independent.
I urge folks to follow us former registered Dems and re-register as Independents.
You can still vote for who you think are the best candidates. It will send a message to the California Democratic Party to get out of Sierra Madre politics!
You need to apologize to Mayor Pro-tem Watts, Bill Coburn.
It was Carol Parker in particular I was thinking of when I inserted the term "often impassioned" into my article. I agree it would be nice to keep party politics out of Sierra Madre's elections, but this is America and they have a right to express their opinions whether we like it or not.
ReplyDeleteBill and others:
ReplyDeleteDon's "coin toss" was a joke. He would never leave it up to chance.
Let me guess, we'll see an article just like this one when Harriet eventually gets out another issue of the Mountain Views Whatever. Like peas in a pod this bunch.
ReplyDeleteDon has two "lucky nickels" one is heads on both sides, the other is tails on both sides.
ReplyDeleteWhat seemed odd was how many of Joe's supporters made an appearance - because they have not been there for him, at meeting after meeting. It must have been a carefully organized effort to get them to come.
ReplyDeletePasta, in Bill Coburn's defense, I believe Don was completely serious. He even told his story of talking to Joe on the phone and asking him if he would choose heads or tails. If he wasn't serious, then it was just plain foolish of him to say it out loud and appear to have zero respect for the seriousness of the decision. Anonymous at 9:50 yesterday is right about one thing, Don's vote was always with Maryanne. I don't think Joe's supporters really believed they could change his mind, but they had hope. Just for the record, I think you should all know that about a month before the 2006 election Don told me on the phone that he really wasn't sure why he was running. In his words, "I was talked into it". I've known Don for many years, and although I was completely surprised that he was running for council, I wasn't at all surprised to hear him say he'd been talked into it. He's basically a nice guy, with a sometimes fiery temper, a talented architect, and in way over his head with city politics. He also has a hard time saying no.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, now that the backlash of his comments has hit the proverbial fan, what do you want to bet that he offers an apology and explanation that he was "just kidding" at the next council meeting.
ReplyDeleteAnyone listening to Don's speech Tuesday knows that Bill took that quote out of context. Don's rejection of Joe as his candidate for Mayor had already been established, and the nickle story was an anecdote designed to lighten the impact. What Bill has done here is the usual hatchet job we see from both him and Susan Henderson. And the sad thing is that it really hurts them both. Anyone capable of critical reasoning has to look at anything coming from either of those two parties and think about their what their agenda is first. I know I would never trust anything either of them would say on a serious topic. 4th of July floats, sure. Cookie bake offs, Why not. But city politics? Never.
ReplyDeleteBad design on Don's part. I hope his architectural design is better thought out then his city council decisions.
ReplyDeleteSo in typical Sierra Madre form, character assassination and ad hominem attacks are the response. People have been "passed over" for Mayor before, and not just Kris Miller-Fisher. Lisa Fowler was passed over. In my book both of those council members were way more "qualified" to be Mayor. They had never double-crossed their constituents, violated campaign promises, or misrepresented their objectives. Moreover, neither of them had objectives of lining their resume with empty achievements so they could attain high levels of dysfunction. Give me a break.
ReplyDeleteI would like to defend Bill as well. Perception is reality and a lot of people perceived his coin toss decision as appauling. Whether Don was "joking" or not, it was very ill advised to make a comment like that. What he did was make a joke of the process and we were all witnesses to that. It demeans the democratic process and those that are fighting for it. As a veteran, I would think he would have more respect.
ReplyDeleteTo be straight up with you, I'd take a nickel over Joe Mosca. It might not be worth much, but at least you'll get something out of it.
ReplyDeletehere here 3:56...
ReplyDeleteWatts made a serious error Tuesday. Not surprising, but very low!
Damn. Joe can't even win an on-line poll here at Dirt central?
ReplyDeleteOh how the mighty have fallen!