Council Watch: Lieber Cedes Mayorship, Hands It Off To Atkinson

December 19, 2008

Mac Zilber

After an election in which his two pet candidates, his pet ballot measure, and his tactics were rejected by voters, Robert Lieber decided it was a good idea to pass off the mayor’s gavel to somebody who was up for re-election in two years: Marge Atkinson. Lieber, who survived re-election by a margin of about 250 votes, had been mayor for two straight years, which was highly controversial at the time, as mayors in Albany typically don’t serve for consecutive years. Despite Lieber’s cession of the post, there was still controversy.

In the old rotating mayor tradition, the mayorship and vice-mayorship (which was given to Joane Wile this year), would roughly rotate based on tenure in the city council. Last year, Farid Javandel, who had previously served as Vice Mayor, was denied the mayorship by Robert Lieber’s bloc (Lieber, Atkinson, and Wile), and was not even allowed to retain his post as Vice-Mayor, with the tacit reason being that he didn’t vote with Robert Lieber 97% of the time. This year, Javandel was passed over again for both posts in favor of less experienced councilmembers who, surprise surprise, did vote with Lieber 97% of the time. However, since Robert Lieber is no longer mayor, perhaps a fairer way to put it is that Sierra Club Bloc (SCB) is not a bloc commanded by Lieber, it is simply a bloc of three people with identical interests.

What is mildly unsettling about the continuance of this two-year-old trend is that November’s election results made it clear that Lieber and his initiatives no longer have a mandate from the public. In the past, when the SCB was able to determine the result of 19 out of every 20 votes, they at least had strong implied support from the public. Indeed, in his first election to the Council, Robert Lieber had 60% of the populous behind him, and, in 2006, Atkinson and Wile trounced Caryl O’Keefe and Francesca Papalia, getting 58% of the vote between the two of them. This year, however, SCB candidates received under 47% of the vote, mirroring the 46% that the SCB-favored Measure Y received. How fair is it that a group that received 46-47% of the votes gets to exercise virtually 100% of the power, while candidates who collectively received 53-54% of the votes are shut out of the decision-making process (since the SCB still has a 3/5 majority in the Council, and 3 votes rules the day in most circumstances). Democracy at work, eh?

One Response

1. 12:36 AM on January 9th, 2009alana:

   i’m glad i’m not the only young person who takes notice of all the bs that goes on with albany politics. keep it up my good man.

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