In a late night tweet Lenny Curry basically ordered the office of general council to come up with a ruling favorable to the city about the sales tax referendum. Such hubris on Curry’s part, he may think he is king but he is not. He may think he is the city but he is not.
The OGC is already seen as being in the pocket of Curry for its recent decisions on the tax referendum. In order to allow the city council to usurp the school boards authority, a junior attorney in the office ignored statutes and changed the meaning of the word “they”.
From the Jaxson,
Historically, the school board would simply send a proposal of this nature to City Council to put on an upcoming ballot, and it would be up to the voters to vet it. Democratic checks and balances, what a time that was! Now, however, the City Council has decided it is the gatekeeper for when and whether the voters get a say at all. Their position was bolstered by a memorandum from the city’s General Council, Jason Gabriel, who is not a human lawyer but rather a sentient weather vane that moves in the direction of the prevailing winds blowing out of the mayor’s office. Apparently, none of Florida’s other, human general councils have made such a judgment in their jurisdictions.
First if you haven’t subscribed to the Jaxon you should and second Gabriel has to see the writing on the wall. Unless he thinks he is going to be able to ride Lenny Curry’s coattails until he hangs up his shingle he has to see the damage all this is doing to his reputation.
Anyway all that referendum stuff was bad, but Gabriel somehow found a way to make it worse. It turns out the initial memo that through the city into disarray was just a memorandum, that had zero force of law that the OGC allowed the city to think had the force of law until councilman Garett Dennis called them on it and demanded an official ruling.
Only then did Jason Gabriel announce he would have a ruling by mid-august dragging his feet in an obvious attempt to run out the clock in an effort to permanently stop the referendum process.
Jason Gabriel’s opinion should now be rendered moot after the mayor’s tweet and he should immediately recuse himself.
Instead of saying to city attorney, let the law take you where it takes you, the mayor implied there were two different types of law, his and those, liberals, who dared disagree with him.
We are here because of a dubious reading of the law and an OGC office that let a memorandum stand for weeks. Now with this tweet how can there be any confidence that this OGC office won’t just do the bidding of king Curry.
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