T-ball politics
I couldn't help but shake my head at the way the new mayor of Ukiah was chosen. First, when I found out that Mari Rodin was chosen, I was surprised, since I thought that it would either be Phil Baldwin or John McCowen. The first because he had seniority and the second because he is arguably the most popular and active of the council members.
Since Baldwin took himself out of the running, Mari Rodin would be next in senioriy and for that reason would, in my view, be a logical choice. But that's not how the council made its decision. Rodin got the Mayor's gavel by what our reporter Ben Brown brilliantly coined the "T-ball" political method: in other words, everyone gets a chance.
Yes. The decision was based on who had the shortest time to serve before the next city council election and among those people, the most seniority. The thinking was that since the mayor's job can be passed on from year to year, it's only fair to give council members with the shortest time left in their terms a chance to be mayor (in case they don't get reelected) over members who have just won reelection and therefore have a full four years to go.
I think the job ought to go to whoever is senior and hasn't yet served. This year it would have been Rodin anyway (after Baldwin withdrew) so the T-ball method came up with the same result.
(For those of you who don't know what T-ball is, it is beginning baseball training for little kids where everyone always plays and batters get to continue swinging until they get a hit.)
Baldwin, meanwhile probably did us all a favor by withdrawing, although I would have loved to have had him made mayor only to put the exclamation point on his relection. But listening to the howls from his opponents would have gotten old - those opponents by the way are already whispering about a recall. I'm not sure getting too many votes is a valid argument for recalling an elected official.
Baldwin meanwhile, was at his best last week when he stepped away from the mayor's post saying he preferred not to be at the center of power but a kind of elder statesman, a sort of "Queen Elizabeth" without the billions." Great suff Phil.
Well the mayor's role in UKiah is a ceremonial so it doesn't much matter. The only real power is running the meetings and anyone among the five council members now in office can I believe do that intelligently.