For a long time now, Scranton City Council President Janet Evans has refused to talk to reporters from this newspaper.
"When you start to print the truth, we'll talk," Mrs. Evans huffed after Tuesday night's council meeting, when reporter Josh Mrozinski dared ask about her reaction to the administration's plan to cover a looming $8.1 million deficit.
So herewith: (drum roll, please) TRUTH.
1. Mrs. Evans and her vaunted "supermajority" are clueless.
For nearly two years Mrs. Evans and her anti-administration colleagues have had the opportunity to use their veto-proof majority to right the city's ship. They have taken on more water.
The supermajority rejected the austerity budget proposed for this year by Mayor Chris Doherty and, in the face of an existing deficit and a projected higher one, reduced taxes and penciled in revenue from a program that still doesn't exist.
Warned by Mr. Doherty that he would have no choice but to cover the inevitable budget shortfall with layoffs affecting council's key constituency, public safety employees, council scoffed.
In doing so, the "supermajority" failed even to protect the constituency it had vowed to protect - unionized public safety employees - 21 fewer of whom are now on the city payroll.
2. Mrs. Evans is an ineffective leader.
Leadership has many dimensions. It requires an agenda far broader than simply opposing whatever the mayor proposes.
Mrs. Evans has been an obstructionist on any number of initiatives favored by Mr. Doherty. That would be fine if she had something better to offer but her opposition is for its own sake. Her leadership is into a blind, dead-end alley.
Recently, for example, she stood foursquare against development of a small community park on Perry Avenue in North Scranton, to the point that her "supermajority" rejected a $50,000 state grant to build it.
As public policy, that is irrational. But it's not about effective public policy. If Mr. Doherty was against developing public parks, Mrs. Evans would demand one on every block.
3. Mrs. Evans and her "supermajority" are incompetent.
By design, Scranton has a strong-mayor form of government. All of the city's administrative machinery, its day-to-day operations and its planning are executive branch functions. Council comprises part-time members with limited powers - even as a "supermajority," as the recent layoffs demonstrate.
Mrs. Evans and her colleagues have attempted to thwart the administration based on their own animosity toward the mayor, rather than on the factual information that should underlie policy.
Back when she was council's finance chairwoman, Mrs. Evans railed at length about the city's projected debt payments after misreading a financial statement. Today, council attempts to craft financial policy without consulting the administration or anyone else.
The overall truth is that Scranton's government has serious problems that need to be resolved by a single government, with its components rowing in the same direction after settling on a course.
Council's weekly political theater, with its Greek chorus condemning the administration on cue, is no substitute.
