Yippee! The city has a new mayor

Thuli Jankey | Tuesday June 28, 2022 03:49

I mean 80% of city folks own dogs that have no discernible breed identity. Dogs with pit-bull eyes, Rottweiler legs, basset hound hindquarters and German Shepherd hearts are all too common and the people of GC are unlikely to want to pay tax for dogs they refer to as ‘my dog’ and not with a measure of pride like ‘my Great Dane’.

So I suspect this is when the plan to pull the rug from under his feet was hatched. There must have been a suspicion that residents will disown dogs and they will roam the city making it difficult to do anything other than police dogs and shoo them off the streets.

With the 2024 election looming, no councillor has time to be focusing on dogs when their political survival is on the brink. They decided he was the source of the acrid stench that filled the room and his party caucus dumped him. The deputy mayor did not fare any better. They must have suspected he was complicit in the Dog Tax issue and fed him into the incinerator too. So basically the circus will hit the road again but not with these elephants as the main act. Mayors, like engine oil, should constantly get changed so that we get new ideas and dreams that are relevant to the ever-evolving times. Civic leadership is especially dicey at the top.

Your fellow councillors might decide they need a mayor who is conversant with modern trends. They might sometimes decide they need a mayor who will preserve the heritage and culture of the city. Or they might one day, for what it is worth, decide they need a mayor who is tall, dark and handsome.

The latter has not happened yet and it is not something they will openly admit to but don’t put it past them. So the guys who ascend to the apex know that these lofty positions are essentially greasy poles and it is quite an effort to get any sort of firm grip.

So we are now excited that there’s a new mayor. Oh and a new deputy mayor. Whenever there’s a new broom the standard rule is you should get excited and hope for better things. We hope we are not only getting a new broom but the whole works i.e. mops, buffing brushes, vacuum cleaners etc so that the issues bedeviling our city can be dealt with.

He has promised an enhanced city which is what our city actually needs. The former mayor had promised us that in terms of improving the city he was serious. The new mayor has promised that he was really, really, really serious.

This is like three times more serious than the previous mayor so we must brace for some good times and an enhanced city. At least the initial rhetoric is in touch with our thoughts and bewilderments about our city.

I personally believe the biggest enhancement that our city needs are street lights that actually work. Somehow our civic leaders together with their well-qualified engineers just cannot figure out how to replace a light bulb that has died.

At home you need a new light bulb and a step ladder and voila the light is back on. But city council apparently does not work like that. It is not as easy as that. First there has to be a meeting to argue which side of the city is darker and needs new bulbs. With every councillor arguing for their nook it becomes very difficult to agree on where the procured bulbs should head.

If they miraculously navigate this bit, they will put this out to tender and whichever company wins the bid will be thwarted by lawsuits accusing them of being related to the mayor or one of the councillors.

Lawsuits take a lot of money, time and councillor’s integrity. Since the new mayor is really, really, really serious this type of situation will surely be a thing of the past.

GC is the only city in this republic that has dirt roads. Our really, really, really serious mayor is going to tarmac our roads. I can feel it in my hair. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com)