No council is complete without a good ol’ fashioned rivalry.
Berkeley City Council’s matchup pits Mayor Tom Bates against Councilmember Kriss Worthington. These frenemies have been fighting for forever — Worthington, the People’s Princess (a la Princess Diana) and Tommy B. exchange hostile glances at every council meeting, and if not for societal standards demanding civil restraint, they would be throwing punches at each other.
When the mayor cuts off a speaker, brings down his gavel just a little soon or makes even the slightest move indicating an infringement of First Amendment rights, the Man of the People is there to jump in and demand that the people be heard. As you can imagine, endless interruptions from your dais neighbor for nigh on eight years will get on your nerves.
So what do you do as mayor when you’re forced to sit next to an irksome council member?
Perhaps you talk to the guy, tell him “Stop being so mean to me. It isn’t very nice.” Perhaps every time he opens his mouth to cut in, you jab him with the butt end of your gavel. Perhaps you make your point passive-aggressively, saying things to your buddy Laurie Capitelli like, “Wow, don’t you hate people who wear blue all the time and can’t stop interrupting the mayor?,” and Laurie chuckles and goes “Ohmygod yeah, those people are the worst,” and then the two of you laugh loudly like it’s some hilarious inside joke.
Perhaps Bates has done all of the above, but to no avail. Perhaps he’s done none of the above and instead goes for the quick and painless option — a game of musical chairs.
Alas, it is the latter option that our dear mayor has resorted to — the People’s Princess has been shifted one seat away so that Bates and his BFF Capitelli can be dais buddies.
Why is this a big deal? Well, the way the City Council dais is set up, the mayor sits in the center, and the seating to his left and right seems to be generally arranged according to seniority. So Jesse Arreguin, the youngest council member, sits on the far outside right end, while Worthington, one of the most senior members, sits directly to the mayor’s left. This is tradition, which means you don’t mess with the seating arrangement. Unless you’re the Master.
I guess the best thing to do is to put ourselves in their situation. If you’re Kriss Worthington, your constituents would be sitting in the audience. The crowd consists of the people voting for you. Council meetings are a show, a show where you, as the Man of the People, must do your due diligence and ensure that the average citizen gets the chance to speak.
A good theater performance means showing up the guy in charge, the authority figure that your constituents are not at all fond of. The easiest way to go about this is to call him out, loudly and regularly.
Now if you’re the mayor, this is … well, annoying. You’re just trying to do your job, and this hostile force next to you is ready to pounce on every little misstep you make.
But interruptions are not the only issue at hand here. The mayor has accused Worthington of manipulating the speaker’s board on the dais — a lighted board that shows the order in which council members are slated to speak and a board on which members can add or remove their names.
Said board is located directly within Worthington’s line of sight, and the mayor believes Worthington adds and subtracts his name in a way that will allow him to get the last word (Worthington profusely denies such allegations of debauchery). Hence, another reason to move him.
So who’s right in the end? Should the mayor have dealt with Worthington on his own terms rather than outright casting him away? Probably. Would Worthington have let up on his harping and bothering? Probably not. It’s an impasse that can only be resolved by the warm body of Laurie Capitelli.
Why am I discussing such a trivial aspect of Berkeley City Council with you instead of lighting upon larger topics such as homelessness or redistricting? Because I want you to have the same reaction I had when I first heard about this — “God, what children.”
Worry not, dear reader; we’ll be getting to the heavy stuff, too. First, we must realize that despite the impact the council’s decisions may have upon this city, it is internally a very petty engine, rife with petty drama and petty disputes.
And yet, the council somehow still functions in spite of all this. All the more reason to celebrate when it is able to enact collective action.
Contact Lynn Yu at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter: @lynnqyu.
Clarification(s):
A previous version of this column should have indicated that the nickname given to Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington was a reference to Princess Diana, who was known as “the people’s princess.” The column also may have implied that the Berkeley City Council has stringent seating assignments arranged according to seniority. In fact, there are exceptions.
Correction(s):
A previous version of this column incorrectly stated that Kriss Worthington is the most senior member of the Berkeley City Council. In fact, Linda Maio is the most senior member.