The show of unity in concocting their narrative wasn't a surprise to anyone familiar with the methods used by Stocks, Gaspar, Muir and Bond. Blaming others is the MO and during this art banner betrayal of basic consideration for Maggie Houlihan's memory; this meant the city manager, assistant city manager, the 101 Artist Colony's Danny Salzhander, Teresa Barth naming truth and the public in general (a given).
It smells bad, no it stinks.
Deputy Mayor Gaspar had a lot of filler, fluff words edited out for length and clarity of her scripted message - strip away all but the rules and process. Both she and Stocks dredged up the Surfing Madonna, which simply took them deeper into revisionist history territory. As if the Art Banners re-write wasn't enough?
Contrast the clip above with Councilwoman Barth, our Mayor in Exile. She consistently acknowledges and shows respect for her colleagues and staff even in disagreeing with their perspective. But, she is to be commended above all for bringing the real issue into this meeting, compassion for a living person's contributions.
Update: Failed to mention, the vote was 4:1 (Gaspar was a no) to allow 101 Artist Colony's Danny Salzhander to go through the silly exercise of filling out another application (process!) which the city manager promised to approve the same day so the covers can be removed from the banners. And nobody will get any signs or banners into the city process now until somebody re-writes the code to be more clear, whatever that means.
