Twenty five people gathered in the city clerk’s office to drag papers out in order to run for mayor. But the only one with decent sense was City Clerk Roberta Gafford, who took the time to personally doled out the city’s charter like a judge handing down a sentence to every one of the 25 would-be mayors. In what I’ve labeled just another oddity in one of the most peculiar political seasons I’ve ever seen, mayoral candidates are running around the town bragging about what they intend to do once they get the big chair. One would-be promises to end monopolies here, while another criticized Mayor Harvey Hall’s symbolic approach and swears he’ll do better. But what our brain dead candidates don’t seem to recognize is they have no vote, let alone power to change the world! The genius that was Harvey Hall was his ability to get his gifted brain around that concept. He not only embraced the job of Bakersfield’s ambassador but he thrived in the municipal Bully Pulpit. Hall would not be relegated to ribbon cuttings and ceremonial speeches at the local Kiwanis .
No, no, no.
Harvey tore of his Sear Sucker suit, kicked off his white bucks and led the charge to try and clean up this filthy city by scouring the sides of freeeways, picking up your mess and trying to bring back a sense of pride in what our town looks like. If any of the 25 wannabes want be as successful as Hall was they’ll steal a page out of the HH book and emulate a man who simply wanted his community to improve and be the best we could be. And finally, Kudos to City Clerk Roberta Gaffard who took an hour, WITH EACH OF THE 25 CANDIDATES and in some cases read parts of the city charter to the numbskulls who appear to be =nothing more than a bunch of power hungry, candidates bent on elbowing Alan Tandy to the curb. You guys should ask Sacramento’s Mayor Kevin Johnson who the charter change works out!
