Mayor Goes "All in" With Legal Action

Mayor Mike Moore has just pushed all his few remaining chips to the middle of the table.  Hard to believe that a man that the year with so many chips is now so quickly down to so few chips and is so quickly risking all that he has left to salvage something, anything from his first year in office.  If the cards don't come up his way, he'll be left for three years without any political chips to bargain with the council and it will be their city to run, not his.

You see, Mike Moore has filed legal action against the council on three separate fronts.  One on the moving of the city's Communication Director to the oversight of the City Clerk.  A second on whether the council has any authority over the use of "TIF" dollars.  And lastly, over the council also acting as the parks department.

If Mike should win all three, he can hold his head up high and claim a very public victory.  A split of either 2 for him, or 1 for him, and he comes off looking very poorly in the public eye, and has thrust the battle he has engaged the council in, into view of the whole region.   A sweep against, and he'll have embarrassed himself and the few remaining blind loyalist he has left yet again.  He'll have no political leverage left after just one year into his term.

I believe the poker term for that is "busted".

Something we all must remember is, this is the way HE wanted and HE has brought this all on himself.  This could have been a nice friendly home game with his pals.  Instead he turned it into the World Series Of Poker, and he has been showing that he was just some guy who could afford the entrance fee and really had no idea what he was doing.

I was told of a conversation that a council member tried to have with mayor after last years election.  The council member reportedly approached Moore about what he would like to see get accomplished going forward so that they could work toward common ground to make sure the city did not go stagnant. 

What was Mike's response to this attempt to find common ground?  Well the answer would be: "I'm the mayor."  (yes, that's where that joke got its start.  And it still infuriates me to this day that this ego maniac thought that mayor equated him to king and that, his response was appropriate)    Moore has since given this story credit when he stated he doesn't see why they have to work together.  They can just pass their ordinances and he can sign or veto them as he sees fit.

So how did a man that started off the year with so many chips get to this point? 

Well, mostly a little here or there.  But remember this could have been a friendly game, but he chose to piss off the people he was sitting at the same table with.  And to piss on some of the people that helped get him there.

So then he lost some at the very beginning when his battle with council started to become apparent.  He lost quite a few when he sent the loyal Mike Hutt packing after Hutt had worked with the council on finding investers into the canal project.  This blasted two of his campaign items.  One, that Moore wasn't the "my way or the highway" guy he painted Tom Galligan to be.  And two, ithad one of his supporters saying that there were people willing to invest in the canal project. 

Then he lost a nice sized pot when he chose to publicly yell at former mayor Dale Orem at a sewer board meeting because he didn't get his way.  He bluffed some more away when he took down a sign designating a park "Galligan Field" only to replace it a few days later.  

Then a lawsuit by Mindy Christian coupled with the way he demolished the old Tubby's building.  His inability to work with council members from his own party or any of the new council members, leading to override after override cost him yet more. 

The political website "j-pol", which seemed only interested in the promotion of the mayors agenda, cost him some more when it went after Vicki Conlin when it was rumored that she would consider running for mayor in the next election. 

Now that's a poker face!  YIKES!

"j-pol" went bye-bye very quickly after that.

Toss in firing the communications director, (possibly after she had just had a meeting with some council members), trying to hire her replacement in the form of someone he should never consider hiring, and his very public divorce and the rumors surrounding that situation and he's almost completely out of chips. Basically after just getting started he's almost completely out.

He had a huge advantage in chips to start out with.  But instead of using them wisely for everyone's betterment, he chose to use them to stroke his own ego.   He could have used those chips to earn himself more chips.  Instead he tried to bully the other people sitting at the table he ended up handing them over.  He could have sat back with his rather large stack and picked his spots.  Instead he went in blindly and irresponsibly just threw them away.

Now he's down and almost out. 

He only had two strategies left.  One to slowly chip away and earn the chips back slowly.  Of course nothing he has done to date indicated that would be his plan of attack. 

The other remaining option was to push his few remaining chips in a try for a quick double up.  And that's what he's done.

But if things don't go his way, he'll be BUSTED!