A Metaphorical Mayor Wants Quiet on the Set

Mayor Ron Corbett loves a good metaphor, a slick simile, an applicable anecdote.

When he ran for mayor, the air was filled with football references. At his first City Council meeting, he waxed on about the consensus-building powers of his gavel.

Corbett's 2011 Condition of the City speech was a metaphorical tour de force. There was the three-legged stool of local-state-federal flood control funding. But no one leg wants to go first, just like three reluctant swimmers at “the swimming hole.” The city is turning the corner like a race car. Look to the “decision tree” for answers. Be the happy stone-cutter who sees the big picture.

Usually, I say, bravo. These are the unconventional utterances keeping hacks like me in business.

But occasionally, hizzoner's metaphor machine spits out a clunker. Consider Roger Ebert.

Corbett explained to our editorial board this week that there is a movie critic named Roger Ebert. And Corbett says this Roger Ebert would never walk out in the middle of a moving picture to write his review. Sure, he might have some halftime doubts about a film's quality, but Corbett said this Roger Ebert fella would still wait until the very end to draw his final conclusions.

As you might guess, Corbett wasn't talking about movies. The film, in this case, is the Convention Complex project.

And the mayor isn't happy with recent criticism leveled before its gleaming stone and glass has even had a chance to rise triumphant from the prairie. “Let this play out before you say this is good, or this is bad,” said Corbett, one day after a city ceremony giving the unfinished project a big thumbs up.

I can tell that the mayor and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz are sort of sensitive to criticism these days. They've got a lot of balls in the air and big projects to track and moving parts to manage, so these taunts from the gallery are likely getting harder to swallow. I completely understand the temptation to yell “Quiet, dammit,” at the nattering naybobs.

But these public projects aren't picture shows. And the taxpaying public is not merely a passive audience. They're paying the bills for all these set pieces. And if some want to criticize, throw a little ripe rhetorical fruit, well, I'm afraid that's all included in their admission price.  Waiting until the final curtain falls to chime in means missing a chance to have any impact on the plot.

That's government work, also known as show biz for the less-than-cinematic. Lots of close-ups, ready or not.

So my advice to our leaders is that they should just keep working hard, fighting the fight, keeping their eyes on the prize. We'll keep watching closely, and, yes, probably criticize at times. And we'll all hope for that movie-magic ending.