Fleeing the bandwagon

This was one of those votes that surprised me. When the Salisbury City Council results were in, I expected the vote for Council president to go between Debbie Campbell and Gary Comegys. Louise Smith was the swing vote in my eyes, as I knew Terry Cohen would support Debbie Campbell and Shanie Shields would be in Gary Comegys' corner. I wasn't expecting Smith to make her own bid for the Council post.

But as the story went, Louise Smith was indeed the swing vote - only it was for herself. She outpolled Debbie Campbell 3-2 in the vote for Council president then rewarded one of her supporters, Gary Comegys, by returning him to the vice-president post in a similar 3-2 vote.

So I found out about this vote last night by reading the other local blogs. By their reaction, you'd have thought they lost their best friend. Just take a moment to remember this, though - all through the campaign, Louise Smith continually noted she was her own person and only was lumped in with Terry Cohen and Tim Spies by the blogosphere and to a lesser extent by local media. To me, the proof of where Smith stands isn't with her vote to hand herself the gavel. It's going to be how well she follows through on her campaign mantra of accountability, starting with the new budget.

Some note that Smith's already off on the wrong foot by not acting on Terry Cohen's suggested work session. Personally, I think Cohen had a good idea but I'll accept the reasons for not having the work session scheduled at face value for the time being. As far as the budget goes, I anticipate both Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen will have long lists of questions and the way these are treated by Louise Smith will go a long way in telling the tale on her Council presidency.

So let's all take a "wait and see" approach to Louise Smith, at least until we see what sort of city budget scissors she has. If she can work with Campbell and Cohen to find the money to solve the priority issues the city has without the huge tax increase Mayor Tilghman wants, I think she'll gain a good number of her supporters back.

Meanwhile, I have one other observation on this whole situation. Had the vote turned out as the bloggers wished, Debbie Campbell would've been City Council president because I'm sure Tim Spies would've supported her over Smith. What this proves once again is that elections do matter.