Rasansky uses budget briefing to get off one more shot at Da Mayor

The Dallas City Council has gone into executive session and then will take a break before it resumes discussing the horrific condition of the city's budget. The morning session was rather routine except for another outburst from outgoing council member Mitchell Rasansky who took the opportunity to criticize Da Mayor for limiting debate to five minutes per council member. "This is way too important," Rasansky said. "We should have to stay here all night if necessary." It reminded me of the last time serious cuts were needed in the budget and Rasansky, about five days before the council had to approve the budget, suggested the budget recommended by then City Manager Teodoro Benavides be scrapped entirely and that the city staff (but not Rasansky) "should roll up its sleeves" and work through the weekend to come up with a budget along the lines Rasansky (and no one else) proposed. That prompted one of the great moments in Mr. Benavides' tenure -- his inspired "You haven't got the guts" speech he directed at Rasansky.

If Mr. Rasansky was really serious about all this, he should be working day and night with other council members to get done what he thinks should be done. The public city council meetings are for grandstanding (and no one does this better than Rasansky) not hands-on shaping of city policy. That has to be done in council offices the other six days of the week. So five minutes each for debate at today's briefing is plenty of time for each council member to make their politically inspired speeches about the budget for public consumption. After that, it's time to get to work. No one that I knew understood that fact better than this guy.