The City Council, Post-Election

We promised a look at the new city council earlier in the week ... so here you go:

Like the school board, the city council underwent a sharp shift on Tuesday. Dennis McHugh was a reliably populist conservative and Harold Bucholtz, alas, was not around long enough to pigeon-hole into any kind of ideological operating style. Taking their places will be two people -- Steve Cummings and Steven Herman -- who look very similar to the only incumbent to win re-election, Burk Tower. Or as the NW says:

It would be easy to portray the re-election of Burk Tower and the election of Steve Herman and Steve Cummings as a victory for the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce. All three ran as pro-development candidates and the two newcomers enjoyed the backing of the chamber and business interests.

But the messages of the winners, in an election that had no real hot button issues, were not all that different from those of the also-rans. All of the candidates focused on planning, economic development and continuing to improve communication between City Hall and the community.

That seems fair enough, to an extent; but here's where the NW starts to veer off the target:

The fact that the election focused on such big-picture issues shows that the city has been successful in beginning to address issues that were a long-standing source of voter angst: crumbling infrastructure and poor customer service.

That allowed the winners of Tuesday's election to run campaigns that were underscored by a theme of returning the council to its proper role of setting direction for city staff and staying out of the minutia of day to day decision making and policy implementation.

That's actually the opposite take-away I got from Tuesday's election. I'd say that after a year of being constantly side-tracked by a pair of council members, voters wanted a council that was more interested in making the trains run on time than worrying about philosophical questions like Is killing deer murder? and Who skipped over Journey on the jukebox? To put it politely, Tower, Cummings and Herman were the three least eccentric candidates on the ballot.

Paradoxically, those boring candidates now make next year's election much more interesting on account of the council's three most eccentric candidates being up for re-election. If this year is the start of a trend, then Oshkosh is looking for competent technocrats who get the job done without much fuss. If a set of clam, low-key and level-headed candidates emerge to challenge next year's incumbents they could change the temperament of the council for some time to come.

Next year also becomes interesting for purely arithmetical reasons. Paul Eslinger can not win another term as Mayor. Period. If a ham sandwich runs against him, it will win. But there is always a chance he can rally enough support on the South Side to continue to serve on the council. That would presumably create a situation where 4 incumbents are vying for 3 at-large seats while the Mayoral chair is open. Who knows: maybe Esslinger and another council member will duke it out for the Mayor's Sash? There are many permutations that could take place next spring, all of which are contingent on a countless string of variables (will voters vote for both Palmeri and Poeschl, or just one or the other? etc.) and many of them result in yet another shift in the council's composition.