Thursday, June 2nd, 2005...10:59 am
West Quits Party
It was officially announced yesterday that Councilmember Carol West has officially changed from being a Democrat to an independent. This move probably shouldn’t effect any of the day to day activities of the council, since it is not organized on a partisan basis. The only thing it may do is allow West to be more open about her support for Republicans Fred Ronstadt and Kathleen Dunbar. There had already been griping from at least one council candidate that she had been helping Ronstadt.
I have no personal problems with Carol West. She seems like a very nice woman and we always have pleasant conversations. However, she threw in with the Republicans on the council; she threw in big with them. She didn’t act as a moderate, someone who both sides could go to and would provide a swing vote. She acted only as a fourth vote for whatever Rondstadt, Dunbar and Walkup wanted. A responsible moderate would be someone who would vote against the more extreme positions, keep Fred and Kathleen honest. She was just a rubber-stamp. Even on issues where it should have been easy for a Democrat to vote yes, like asking Kinder-Morgan to build in a new place so gasoline wouldn’t rain down on neighborhoods, she took the “All Businessmen Can Do What They Want and Damn the Residents” Republican side.
A few years ago, there was an attempted settlement with Eller Media over the ongoing billboard lawsuits. The settlement was deeply flawed, and it prompted me to send faxes to several council members (I didn’t bother with Fred). I recieved calls from a couple of members, including West. The calls from the other council members would be questions about the settlement and what I thought of this or that. First question from West was, “How did you know about this?” I told her I had some sources. Why was that the question, rather than the substance of the fax?
By the way, the deal was killed, not by West being a swing vote, but by Bob Walkup telling Ronstadt what a horrible idea it was.
The dearth of coverage of this has been interesting. It got covered in the Tucson Citizen, but didn’t make it into C. J. Karamargin’s weekly column or the Star. It also did not make the Tucson Weekly’s political columns. Either the local media realizes that Carol hadn’t been working with the Democrats for a long time, or once again, they don’t give a rat’s ass about local politics.
I liked Carol’s husband Neil, who did a great deal of work for the local party. It looks like I’m going to get his slot on the State Committee.
Comments are closed.