Sticking the knife into Eisenberger
February 13, 2009
Andrew Dreschel
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/Opinions/article/512876
He didn't quite groan. He didn't quite moan.
It was more of a softly uttered blend of the two sounds as, rising to his feet, Mayor Fred Eisenberger queasily realized he was the only one voting to spend $2 million on the controversial plan to glass-in the overhang above the front doors of City Hall.
While the 13 other councillors who were present remained seated, Eisenberger stood by himself: publicly isolated, politically alone, all eyes in the room resting on a man completely out of step with his colleagues.
It was a painfully embarrassing moment, particularly given recent Spectator articles pointing out the mayor's difficulty in winning big votes.
But on top of that, the incident ranks as one of the most politically cruel I've seen at city hall in a long time.
The stroke was meted out by Councillor Chad Collins through the simple expedient of gratuitously calling for a standing recorded vote on the issue.
Standing recorded votes are purely optional.
Traditionally, they're used for closely contested issues to ensure there's a formal record of which side councillors are on.
But forcing councillors to physically stand up and be counted can be manipulated for more cynical purposes.
Collins denies he called for the standing vote in order to embarrass the mayor.
He says he did it because he didn't know which way the vote was going to go and he wanted to be on record as opposing it.
"I thought there might be other people who might support it, too," he said after the meeting.
Certainly Councillors Tom Jackson, Margaret McCarthy, and Terry Whitehead (who argues he originally only offered conditional backing) flipped their previous support for the enclosure during the vote.
But Collins is blowing smoke.
The fact is, everyone going into that meeting the other night knew that an overwhelming number of councillors would be voting against the enclosure, which had generated such negative public feedback.
According to Whitehead, Eisenberger had even told some of them before the meeting that he knew he didn't have the votes and so he asked them not to belabour the issue.
Beyond that, it was clear that some of the mayor's previous supporters had high-tailed to the other camp when Jackson jocularly shouted "opposed" the moment the issue was raised.
In short, there wasn't a shred of doubt that the so-called "wow factor" was set to be soundly rejected.
So why put the knife in and give it a twist?
Based on the open gloating and suppressed smirks some councillors displayed following Eisenberger's humiliation, it was for the pure blood sport of it.
To his credit, Eisenberger refuses to point fingers.
Yes, he says, it was a "foregone conclusions" he was going to lose.
Yes, he's well aware that the $2-million addition to the $74-million City Hall reno was unpopular in the community.
But he stands by his conviction that it would add functional value to the project and so he voted with his conscience.
Yes, he knows standing votes can be used to embarrass councillors.
But he doesn't know that was the intent in this case.
Listen, Eisenberger isn't a choir boy.
He himself recently mocked Councillor Lloyd Ferguson for being heavily outgunned on a vote.
But Eisenberger also quickly apologized for his callous comment when Ferguson called him on it.
The standing vote was something else entirely.
What Collins initiated had the appearance of a deliberate deballing, a sly and chippy takedown for no purpose other than political one-upmanship.
Unfortunately, by dragging the rest of council in his wake, Collins made them all look petty and mean-spirited, even the blameless who just want to get along.
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