Disrespecting voters

What do you call an unofficial get together at Baker City Hall that includes the former city manager and two current city councilors?

We call it not playing nicely with others.

We don’t care whether Councilors Milo Pope and Sam Bass enjoy the company of certain of their five fellow councilors.

But Pope, who convened the meeting in late April, and Bass owe a modicum of respect to the people who elected them, some of whom also voted for those councilors whom Pope and Bass don’t much care for.

Inviting former city manager Steve Brocato to deliver a primer on municipal budgeting hardly qualifies as respectful.

In fact the episode seems to us an intentional move to further sow discord in a City Council that has had a surfeit of such since the 4-3 vote to fire Brocato 11 months ago.

We get that Pope and Bass disagreed with that majority decision. It’s hardly a secret; they cast two of the three votes opposed to Brocato’s termination.

And then they publicly supported the campaign to recall Mayor Dennis Dorrah and Councilor Beverly Calder, two of the four who voted yes.

But if Pope and Bass truly believe that Brocato has something worthwhile to teach councilors about budgeting, then why didn’t they ask Dorrah to schedule a public meeting so that all seven councilors could benefit from the knowledge?

We’re curious, too, about why Pope didn’t invite current City Manager Steve Bogart. Bogart has worked on more municipal budgets than Brocato has.

(Bogart did attend the recent meeting, having learned of it a few days before.)

Ultimately, the purported purpose for the meeting, which Pope described in an e-mail as “The Brocato Budget Club,” seems specious.

After all, in the month before the meeting with Brocato the city’s budget board — which consists of the seven councilors and seven members of the public whom councilors appointed — had convened twice to discuss the city’s financial situation with Finance Director Jeanie Dexter.

Dexter, by the way, is the real architect of the city’s budget.

As we opined last fall, in reference to the failed attempt to recall Dorrah and Calder, city councilors need not be friends to adequately represent their constituents.

But councilors must at a minimum demonstrate that they’re willing and able to temporarily suspend their animosity and work together to do the city’s business, to the best of their ability.

In many instances over the past year the Council, despite its differences, has shown that it’s capable of doing exactly that.

But Pope’s and Bass’ willful exclusion of their colleagues, on such a vital topic as spending taxpayers’ money, has the potential to dismantle the foundation of professionalism the Council has assembled.