Winkler and Anderson's City Council

I mentioned earlier to day that I have not been able to keep up with the blogging thanks to a bad back. That doesn't mean I have not been paying attention. How the Anderson City Council handled Greg Winkler has had me gritting my teeth. For those not knowing, Winkler was Anderson's marketing consultant. The Democratic majority got rid of Winkler at last week's council meeting.

For better or worse, the Democratci majority gave the Herald-Bulletin the opportunity to write up thier dismissal of Winkler as a partisan move. Party-line council budget vote confirms Winkler's ouste. The Herald-Bulletin kindly gave Donna Dixon a chance to explain the majority's view:

“We just didn’t get our money’s worth out of him,” said Council President Donna Davis, D-District 2. “We would like that to be a full-time city position, not someone with an expense account.”

As an explanation that leaves a lot to be desired. Except for Kevin Smith. I suspect he will rather enjoy that explanation. Here is all that explanation lacks:

1. How the council decided what was Winkler's worth.
2. Which means the council has a vision of Anderson's future, and that vision was uncommunicated to The Herald-Bulletin.
3. What advantage there is for Anderson with a full-time city position.
4. Which then means that what was wrong with a consultant remains uncommunicated and left the interpretation open that what was wrong with Winkler was his merely being an appointee of a Republican mayor.
5. Avoiding the impression that getting rid of Winkler was about giving a black eye to the Mayor rather than in promoting Anderson's economic growth.

The paragraph following the one above undercut Davis's statement even more:

Davis said she would like to form a committee to explore bringing in one or more economic development consultants. Winkler was selected by Mayor Kevin Smith, who hoped for at least one Democrat to reconsider the matter.

So which is it: consultants are bad and city employees are good or just those consultants selected by Mayor Smith are bad?

Bone-headed is about all I can call it. Smith's campaign will rise and fall on economic development. He has Nestle on his resume. Now he can beat the Democrats over the head as being the obstructive party. All he has to do is take a leaf from Mitch Daniels' playbook.

Next year Mitch Daniels is up for re-election and Barry Welsh is running against Mike Pence. We will need every possible vote to beat Daniels and Pence. How many local independents will turn away thanks to this mess?

All this just raises more questions in my head. Does anyone remember how The Herald-Bulletin treated Bob Rock four years ago? Has anyone noticed the flurry of signs for Ty Bibbs? Does the Council majority think it could not do this after the election?

Then to top it all off we have a local businessman offering to raise money to fund Winkler's position. Business owner suggests compromise on Winkler just makes us look more foolish.