RACE IN THE 15TH - The bucket brigade dumped a large pail of cold water on Pat McOsker's early hopes to glide into a Council seat today, as the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City voted not to endorse any candidate for office in Council District 15. (See also Rick Orlov report on “McOsker’s Political Ambitions Cause Friction”)The union also gave itself an escape clause, perchance revisiting the issue with rank and file again in September.
A union head running for a Council seat presents the public with a three-ring circus of situational ethics.
On July 22 McOsker showed that he had no ethical concerns for strong-arming his own union by sending out official union correspondence admonishing members of the Union [link] "to show up for that [today's] meeting, to ask questions, and to participate in this important decision. In the mean time, please be skeptical of the flood of anonymous, unverifiable or irresponsible e-mails floating around our Department."
(Joseph Mailander is a writer and an observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He blogs at street-hassle.blogspot.com where this column first appeared.) –cw
Tags: United Firefighters, Council District 15, Pat McOsker
CityWatch
Vol 9 Issue 60
Pub: July 29, 2011
