Pete Festersen’s Stall Tactics

Yesterday, Mayor Jim Suttle gave his State of the City address.  In that address, he urged the city council to pass the police contract as soon as possible.  After the speech, the Omaha World-Herald caught up with city councilman Pete Festersen.  Here’s an excerpt from the World-Herald story.

Councilman Pete Festersen, who was in the audience for Suttle’s address, said he’s in no hurry to approve the contract. He suggested waiting until the council names a replacement for Councilman Chuck Sigerson, who resigned last week to continue recovering from a stroke and heart attack.

If the council waits until Sigerson is replaced, Festersen said, the council will “have all parts of the city represented” when a contract vote is taken.

“We need to make sure we get it right,” he said. “To make the wrong decision would be the worst outcome.”

I’ll concede the last statement to Festersen; it’s important to make the right decision, but Festersen is trying to find as many excuses as possible to delay the vote on the council contract.  He’s looking to play out a politically calculated maneuver.  Festersen is an ambitious young man with aspirations for higher office – he wants to be mayor.  When you have higher office in mind, every decision you make has to be carefully calculated.  The decision to delay the police contract has been carefully calculated and here’s how it works.

Up until now, Festersen has voted against every single proposal that involves a tax increase, and Festersen wants to keep it that way.  Festersen is similar to Jean Stothert; he votes against controversial things without presenting an alternative way to fix the problem.  I have no problem with someone voting against tax increases, but you can’t bash a tax increase when you’ve presented nothing to avoid the tax increase.

Festersen wants to keep his unblemished record intact.  When he runs for mayor, Festersen can brag about never voting for a tax increase and never voting for something that puts the budget in jeopardy.

One important aspect of the police contract deals with the pension shortfall.  The Bates Commission (which I talked about in a previous post) recommended that the city and police equally split the pension shortfall.  The new contract comes pretty close to that; there is some bickering about whether the police can contribute there portion in reduced pension benefits versus cash payments.  For your sake, I won’t get into that.

So, what is Festersen’s problem with the contract?  If you follow the recommendation of the Bates Commission, then the city needs to come up with roughly $13 million annually to cover it’s portion of the pension shortfall.  The city doesn’t have that money sitting around and needs to look at ways to raise the money.  The city is already operating on a bare-bones budget so cutting $13 million out of the budget is out of the question.  The Bates Commission laid out ways to raise the money – a garbage fee or sales tax increase.  If Festersen votes for the contract, he’s basically admitting that the city needs to find ways to pay for it.

Festersen is trying to delay the vote so he can vote against the contract.

On Festersen’s campaign website, he says one of his top priorities is to “resolve police and fire pension shortfalls”.  He hasn’t presented any alternative to the current police contract or to the Bates Commission recommendations that doesn’t involve some type of revenue enhancement (that means tax increase for all of you that hate euphemisms).  It’s perfectly acceptable to bash the s*** out of the police and fire contracts, but when you don’t have a better idea of how to do things, that’s when I have a problem.

As I’ve said before, when you have political aspirations, every vote is important.  If the vote were held without an additional council person, it would be very risky for Festersen to vote against it.  Whether he’d admit it or not, Festersen is a Democrat and a “no” vote would definitely hurt him with a sizable constituent – unions.  Festersen is currently the deciding vote and he wants to skirt that responsibility.

If the city council were to appoint a city council person who would vote for the contract, Festersen would be off the hook.  The council could then approve the contract with Festersen voting “no”.  It’s a dream scenario for Festersen.  Actually, Festersen’s dream scenario would be to appoint a Republican to the vacant seat who would then vote for the contract.  But, that’s about as likely as Jamaica winning an Olympic medal in bobsledding.

So, Festersen has come up with some absurd excuses to delay a vote.  The excuse he touted to the OWH claims that if a replacement is chosen, then all parts of the city will be represented when a contract vote is taken.  This is an extremely hypocritical excuse.  Sigerson has been absent for almost six months, and in those six months, the city council has gone about its business without Sigerson.  The city council voted on an extremely important and controversial budget when Sigerson was absent.  Did Festersen complain? Did Festersen delay this vote? No.

It’s also absurd to think that casting a “yes” or “no” vote on the police contract amounts to representation for District 7.  The person selected by the council to represent this district will basically be thrown to the wolves if they’re expected to cast an informed vote on the police contract.  That person is also being appointed by the council and not voted in by the people.  And to truly bring the new council person up to speed on a complex police contract could take three months or more.  Is Festersen willing to delay the vote until May? Yes, as long as he can vote “no”.

So, that explains Festersen’s stall tactics, but let’s take a very quick look at Festersen’s overall political strategy.

As I’ve said, Festersen is looking to run for mayor soon, but Festersen is increasingly a councilman without a constituency and without a party.  The unions really aren’t thrilled with him.  It may be a populist move to bash the unions, but if you’re a Democrat aiming for higher office, it’s not the smartest move to piss them off.

It’s no secret that Festersen is a lapdog for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.  His BFF is the executive director of the Chamber – David Brown.  When David Brown says “jump”, Festersen says “how high”?  Festersen is relying heavily on Chamber support for future political runs.  Unfortunately, he has misplaced loyalties.  Let’s put it this way, the Chamber is like that obnoxious person at weddings or networking functions that will talk to you but is scanning the room for someone more important to talk to.  Festersen is loyal to the Chamber, but the Chamber is not loyal to Festersen.  If Festersen ran for mayor against a legitimate Republican opponent, the Chamber is going to support the Republican.  If Festersen is relying on the Chamber to punch his meal ticket, then he’s in for a rude awakening.

What’s ironic is David Brown sat on the Bates Commission and signed off on the recommendations for police contract I’ve explained previously.  I wonder what Brown is telling Festersen in those daily phone calls they have with each other.