At drinks with my older, wiser politico last night I brought up the ongoing ‘Advisory Council’ issue that Councilmember Emerald is embroiled in and he laughed. His thoughts, paraphrased:
“Emerald really stepped in it this time, in her district and in the public eye generally. She’s stuck – if she doesn’t come clean with the names, she’s going to take heat from the newspaper and from real local community leaders who think this is a screwjob. If she does reveal the names and they are anything but legitimate community leaders she’s going to take as much heat from legit community leaders and the press. Either way this is another in a chain of actions which damages her ‘troubleshooter’ moniker — the ethics issue, the ethics committee appointment, the tapings the first time around. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. She’s going to have to wipe pretty hard to get this one off her shoe.”
Again, that is from memory, but I think I got most of the color in. Damned if she does, damned if she does not. Frankly I can’t believe she would try to get the City Attorney to tell her she doesn’t have to release the names to the public. You can’t call this a community advisory council and keep the members secret, particularly when you put out the existence of the group on a press release. It just doesn’t smell right.