City Commission Blows It (Heartwell too)

I've been trying to avoid this issue because I really like the fact that the Grand Rapids City Commission is pretty progressive, but they really screwed up this Police Chief thing. Mayor George Heartwell is taking most of the heat but they were all in on it.

The basic story is simple: City Manager Kurt Kimball chose the boring white guy to be the Chief and then appointed the community-friendly African American as the Deputy. He said he thought the the better administrator should be the boss given all the budget problems.

The Mayor and CC freaked out, in public, after the fact, and said Kimball got it backwards - and blew an opportunity to make a positive statement with the black community.

Maybe they were right. But it was only going to work if they got into the decision before it was made. Braying about it on Tuesday makes them look lame, makes the new Chief look bad and gives the opposition two week's worth of taking points for how the progressives are nothing but a bunch of knee-jerk liberals.

Timing is everything, and being right after the fact doesn't mean spit. They should have hammered Kimball in private and kept their public mouths shut.