Pro-Tem Pettiness

City council will be taking up the issue of having a new election for Mayor Pro Tempore during Tuesday's meeting.

Pay attention to that vote because I think someone is getting screwed over. And that someone is City Rep Emma Acosta. And its likely because of potential mayoral aspirations.

We all know the talk. There's talk that Representative Acosta will make a run for mayor. There is still talk that Representative Niland will make a run for mayor too. So Mayor Leeser is constantly looking over his shoulder while he's trying to occasionally break a tie.

Niland has held the position for a while now and she can't wait to give it up. Acosta wants it and so does Representative Noe. If you followed the agenda review today you'll notice that Representatives Limon and Acosta both questioned the need for the vote to take place on Tuesday.

Let me remind you that this city council has a major tendency to ram home things if they have the votes. If you recall this is the same city council that tried to use process to silence opposition from Representative Limon. They tried to pull a fast one and change the rules so that they would effectively keep her out of their hair.

And voting tomorrow for Pro Tem really isn't any different than that vote.

The election for district 1 is Saturday. The new city rep will take over in a matter of two weeks.

What on earth is the urgency to elect a Mayor Protem on Tuesday? The answer is simple.

I think the Mayor would rather chew tin foil than have Representative Acosta serve even one day as Mayor Pro Tem under his administration. Talk about petty. The Mayor Protem presides over meetings in the absence of the mayor and represents the city at crappy rubber chicken dinners.

Is Mayor Leeser so worried about Acosta that he wants to ram home the votes with a lame duck council instead of waiting for the new member of council who will have to work with whoever is the new Mayor Pro Tem?

Does he think that if Acosta presides over one or two council meetings that the people of El Paso are going to be so impressed that they are going to revolt come election time and support anyone but Leeser? Seriously, how insecure and petty is that crap?

Thats petty even for this council who has refined petty to a tax-payer funded artform.

It was wrong when pettiness was a factor in seating arrangements. It was wrong when pettiness was a factor in disenfranchising the voters of an entire city rep district, and its wrong when process is used to railroad a vote when there is no real urgency.

Acosta is no push over though. She's a fighter and I'd expect her to bring this issue up before the vote is taken. When the issue was raised at agenda review it was said that it was put on the agenda at the request of City Rep Cortney Niland who was not in attendance.

As mentioned before, she may also play into the mayoral election in a couple of years. I asked Representative Niland about the need to have the vote on Tuesday's meeting but have not received a response as of the time of this posting.

Word around the water cooler on the 10th floor (I know its not the 10th floor anymore, I just like pissing off the crazies who never really gave a crap about the old city hall building) is that Leeser is going to remove Acosta from the MPO. The MPO seat is important because basically all the really important decisions about the distribution of mobility dollars are made there. That is something Acosta can sell to voters when she runs for mayor so it makes sense that he would want to minimize her spotlight on the MPO. Look for him to appoint Carl Robinson to the MPO to replace Acosta.

I know I don't write about city council as much as I should but when I see screw jobs so blatant its just annoying and I feel like someone has to call a spade a spade.

And Acosta is getting screwed over just because of insecurities in my opinion. We should demand better of our leadership.

There is absolutely no real concrete urgency to have the vote on Tuesday. I hope Acosta raises this issue and makes the mayor and anyone in support of having the vote tomorrow defend their position because it just doesn't make any sense as to why it can't wait until after the election on Saturday.

We owe fidelity to the process.

I'm always suspicious of things that are rammed home using a false sense of urgency.

And you should be too.