You know, in the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we thought about heading over to occupy Eric Wasserman’s local Edward Jones office, but then, Geisel pointed out that they’ve got a pretty good candy bowl over there and we were all likely to fall into diabetic comas if we stayed too long, so … we figured Suite Z is actually a better target.

After all, Suite Z is where $40 million legal judgments are born, where raids on supposedly-designated tax revenues (Measures R and U) are perpetrated, and where our beloved local taxeaters spend every other Wednesday playing Three Card Monte.

But then … those Occupying Wall Street are at least occupying an area which, though morally bankrupt, appears financially solvent. In Mammoth, we’ve got it the other way around.

As is often the case, by the time the paper was out last weekend, I was dissatisfied with my editorial. I felt the message wasn’t succinct.

My frustration with local government is that we practice “checklist democracy.” Staff and consultants tell our Town Council what protocol needs to be followed to get certain things done. That we need to write district plans and update zoning codes and dot a mess of i’s and cross a bunch of t’s. And the work never ceases, just as the work is never actually read … except by Attorney Mark Carney. That’s how Old Mammoth Place got approved. But I digress.

The point is, everything we do is so staff-driven, so staid, so formulaic. If a public meeting is held where there is public dissension, we continue to schedule public meetings until the dissenters finally have a conflict or get tired or go on vacation … freeing Community Development Director Wardlaw to ultimately write whatever the hell suits him.

Council generally finds the documents it’s presented with discombobulating, discouraging and indigestible.

As Councilman Skip Harvey commented at Council Wednesday night (as Council approved the scope of work for the Town’s Economic Development Program, “I don’t feel like we’re making progress. We form committees to form documents that say we should form more committees to form more documents. Instead of a planning department we need an action department. Let’s consolidate and get something done.”

Proving Harvey’s point, Mayor Jo Bacon and Councilman Rick Wood couldn’t even remember the name of a current committee that they both sit on.

So this is what I think. We have five smart, well-informed Councilmembers who, when you sit down with them on a one-on-one basis, can articulate the issues with deftness and insight.

But when Staff serves Council its special brand of scrambled egghead salad, it’s like they’re all lobotomized by the sheer volume of minutiae placed before them.

“I do not like green egghead salad and ham. I do not like it, Sam I am.”

Suggestion: Commission less reports. Make more decisions. Councilman Harvey, it’s not about wishing for an action department. It’s about being an action council.

Braydon Hyland

Mammoth Firebirds Hockey Team is sending their condolences out to fellow teamate Bill Hyland and his family. Bill’s son, Braydon, passed away last week.