In the Arena: City Council plays political Whack-a-mole

I’m not even sure where to begin today.

Covering Greenfield these days is a little like playing a game of political “Whack-A-Mole.” As soon as one issue gets knocked down, another one pops up, which was certainly the case at this week’s City Council meeting.

A whole lot of sausage got made during Wednesday night’s four-and-a-half hour opus, some of which still remains simmering on the front burner, mostly related to what may, or may not, be on the ballot for the voters to consider this November.

After getting verbally slapped around by a number of conservatives and pro-lifers over a pair of non-binding resolutions related to presidential impeachment and abortion rights, and an executive session briefing on a number of lawsuits the city is facing, the council dug into a lengthy agenda which included two big items — whether to override a mayoral veto of the Safe Cities Ordinance, and a request to put a question on the ballot asking if voters favor a recent rezoning of the French King Highway.

Let’s start with Safe Cities, which is a bone on which official Greenfield has been gnawing for the better part of a year. The council reaffirmed the ordinance last month with what looked like a veto-proof majority. Mayor Bill Martin, as expected, vetoed it, leaving the council to decide whether to sustain said veto, which would have killed it, or override, which would have put it on the ballot in November.

The problem is, two of the votes needed to override were missing. Council President Karen Renaud and At Large Councilor Ashli Stempel weren’t in attendance, so the progressives were forced to table any action, which creates a bit of a conundrum related to the election.

According to City Clerk Kathy Scott, the deadline for putting referendum questions on the Nov. 5 ballot is Oct. 1, which sets Sept. 30 as the final day the council could act on the measure.

The situation would seem to benefit the conservatives, and, by extension, the hopes of now-write-in mayoral candidate Brickett Allis. If the veto is upheld, Safe Cities goes away. If not, Allis gets a big, fat wedge issue which will help drive voters to the polls in his campaign against mayoral primary winners Roxann Wedegartner and Sheila Gilmour.

Then there’s the French King, and whether council would bend to the will of Al Norman and put a question on the ballot asking if voters favor the decision to relax certain zoning restrictions in that area in exchange for a new library.

A number of people clearly feel that if the library is going on the ballot, the French King Highway should, too. But there are others who feel that if Norman wanted it on the ballot, he should have collected the signatures to put it there, just like the library opponents did.

That left the council with the Hobson’s choice of turning its back on its own referendum process and agreeing to Norman’s request, or leaving the French King on the cutting room floor, at least for now.

It turns out, they did neither. After an unsuccessful attempt by Councilor Isaac Mass to adjourn the meeting without taking any action, which left the sprawlbuster visibly perturbed, the council eventually voted to accept Norman’s petition.

But then, in something of a surprise move, Councilor Tim Dolan moved that the council put a question on the ballot, but that it be “non-binding,” which was different from what Norman wanted. Dolan argued that the question would at least give the council a sense of where the community stands on the issue today, which may very well be different than the two other times that the community weighed in on the matter.

Dolan’s motion for a vote was thwarted by a procedural objection filed by Mass, Allis and Councilor Wanda Muzyka-Pyfrom, forcing the matter back to committee, where a non-binding language could be drafted for the council’s consideration — a vote that would likely be subject to the same ballot deadline as Safe Cities is.

So while Nov. 5 remains the most important date on Greenfield’s electoral calendar, it would appear Sept. 30 is a close second, because that’s when the next moles will be popping up in the ongoing arcade game which seems to now dominate the increasingly fascinating phenomenon that is Greenfield politics.

Chris Collins is an increasingly beleaguered Greenfield native who has been covering Franklin County politics for over a quarter of a century. He can be reached at sourcechris.collins@gmail.com.