Things change fast in Jackson. Just ask the city council. Andy Rodriguez's unexpected announcement earlier this week that he was stepping down due to health concerns added a new subplot to an already dramatic election.
Elected in 2002, Rodriguez is the third-longest tenured member of the current body. Outgoing Mayor Rosalie Pryor Escamilla was elected in 2000 and Councilman Al Nunes, up for reelection this year, was elected way back in 1996.
Wayne Garibaldi, appointed at the beginning of this year to fill the remainder of sheriff's Lt. Drew Stidger's term, is also hoping to keep his seat. The same could be said of all of Jackson, which hasn't been the same since losing the downtown business traffic of the relocated courthouse and the sales tax dollars of its migrated auto mall. Then again, it's not as if people are rushing out to buy new cars right now - unless it's to provide a substitute roof for a foreclosed home.
Trying for one of the open slots are former council members Marilyn Lewis and Keith Sweet, Jackson Planning Commissioner Dave Butow and Jackson resident Judy Jebian. Aside from Sweet - and I make this qualification only because I'm unfamiliar with the man's record - these challengers could all be considered contrarians in one way or another.
I personally remember Lewis from my short stint covering the Jackson City Council in 2005. That is, I remember her hats, ostentatious head-dresses of straw and pastel fabrics as overwhelming as the pixie-ish woman herself. When I rejoined the Ledger staff in late 2006, Lewis had just lost her re-election bid to Vice Mayor Connie Gonsalves.
As a member and past president of the Amador County Historical Society, Butow has been outspoken about structures he's felt the county has neglected - the county museum and Amador Railroad, among them - while serving on the commission that allowed the old Buscaglia's building to be torn down. He recently spoke out against an ordinance that would ban smoking downtown.
Jebian, chairperson of the citizen's group Concerned Citizens of Jackson, has been an ardent critic of the council's interactions with Sacramento developers New Faze. After the company's five-year effort to build a 540-home golf resort in the city fell apart earlier this year, Jebian took to spearheading a petition drive to get a referendum on next month's ballot that could have affected the city's general plan update. The measure would have sought to rescind approval of the final environmental impact report for the land use, circulation and development code elements of the update, which Jebian's group saw as too beholden to development interests. The Amador Superior Court ruled in July that the petition signatures had been gathered improperly and tossed the referendum.
A one-term city council member who lost his re-election effort in 2002, Sweet is a former educator who was unsuccessful in his bid to unseat District 1 Supervisor Rich Escamilla in 2004. Despite coming down to a run-off, Sweet, who ran on a platform of controlled growth and community visioning, came up short.
My familiarity with incumbent Nunes, virtually an institution at this point, comes mostly from covering the Amador County Transportation Commission, on which he sits as Jackson's appointee. The man's nice enough, and has a way of threading occasionally sharp remarks through a jovial, "aw shucks" patois, but I couldn't really tell you where he stands on anything. Likewise, Bank of Amador president Garibaldi remains a political mystery, though he, too, radiates kindness and affability.
I do remember Rodriguez as someone who often sided against his colleagues when it came to New Faze's controversial Jackson Hills proposal. His wife, Terri Works, recently left the Jackson Planning Commission and managed Pryor Escamilla's District 1 campaign. Both she and Berry lost to businessman John Plasse. On Wednesday, Rodriguez told reporter Scott Thomas Anderson health reasons compelled him to stop doing anything that could bring on stress, listing his elected post as a chief source.
Whatever happens in November, Jackson's city council will be markedly different - and, maybe, oddly familiar. Stidger, Pryor Escamilla and Rodriguez will be gone and those remaining will be a mix of the old, the borrowed and the new. Current members have to decide what to do about Rodriguez's vacant seat, which can't be woven into the election this late in the game. At least, not officially. My unsolicited recommendation would be to appoint the seat to the fourth-highest vote getter in next month's election. Alternative options are viable, too, but this gesture would instill in Jacksonites even greater stakes in a city it will take everyone to revive.
| Raheem Hosseini |