Loco politicos were drawn to last nights swearing in ceremony for the county council and county executive loco politicos like bees to honey. Not only were the friends and family of the new council members and executive in attendance, a host of other politicians were there as well. They even had their own seating area as I suppose they feel more comfortable with each other than the unwashed masses in the general audience.
There was plenty of time for socializing before the festivities got underway and the first person I ran into was James Howard. Jamie was there because he was being confirmed for his new appointment to the HoCo Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board.
I also ran into loco politico kingmaker Roger Caplan. I had the pleasure to introduce “The Rog” to Tom Coale. I was actually surprised they hadn’t met before. Rog sort of surprised me when he said that Tom was the loco righty blogger and I was the loco lefty blogger. I told him that some readers of Tales of Two Cities would beg to differ with him. Tom then insisted that he was actually more progressive than me. I suppose that would make me regressive then.
One thing I’ve learned over years of loco politico observation is that elected officials like to be recognized, even when they are just sitting in an audience. They also don’t mind being recognized more than once. Last night, Korva Coleman the moderator for the evening, was running through the litany of officials in the room. Towards the end she also recognized the former county executives in the audience including Jim Robey who had already been recognized as a senator but then failed to mention Liz Bobo for a second time. I suspect Ms Coleman suddenly noticed the steam rising from the a seat in the VIP section and quickly apologized while recognizing Liz for a second time. Liz stood up and took a bow.
The use of the bees to honey metaphor was also fitting because last night, in the new council’s inaugural session, the legislation to revise the zoning for HoCo beekeepers was formally read. The first public hearing for the bees will be on December 20th.
After the ceremony was over I had the opportunity to speak with Allan Kittleman. Allan was upset that none of the council members had the courtesy to second Greg Fox’s motion to reintroduce his veterans’ commission legislation. He claims that seconding a motion, even if you plan to subsequently vote against it, is a courtesy that was regularly extended when he served on the council. “Then again we had two Republican council members back then,” he reasoned.
