Marc Lamont Hill: A tip of my hat, Mayor, for this political hat trick

AS A POLITICAL critic, my job is sometimes hard. Although it's easy to challenge the people with whom I have sharp political disagreements or personal beef, my job also requires me to hold my colleagues, political allies and friends accountable.

Perhaps the best example of this is Mayor Nutter. I've known him for years and have always liked him as a person and admired his sincerity, work ethic and willingness to make unpopular but necessary decisions.

Lately, however, the mayor has been one of my biggest and most consistent targets. From the irresponsible threats to close libraries, to the wrongheaded "stop and frisk" policy, I have called the mayor to the carpet for his failure to vigorously protect the interests of our city's most vulnerable.

This past week, however, the mayor made three moves that were not only well-intentioned, but politically savvy and ethically correct.

First, he went to the mat with City Council to raise funding for schools. Although his proposed 2-cents-per-ounce soda tax was rejected, his proposal for a property-tax hike was accepted. Though the tax increase was only 3.85 percent, rather than the 5 percent that Nutter wanted, it will generate more than $37 million. At a moment when after-school programs and full-day kindergarten are threatened with cuts, Nutter's efforts saved our schools and our children from a near deathblow.

Next, Nutter served as one of the most prominent voices during this week's U.S. Council of Mayors annual conference. Nutter joined the country's most-powerful mayors in demanding that we not allow our commitment to military spending undermine our investment in urban centers.

Although Nutter was not as aggressive and direct in his critiques of President Obama as many of us on the left would have liked, he nonetheless served as a passionate and principled voice of opposition against many of the administration's current policies.

At the end of the day, he sent a loud and clear message that we shouldn't have to choose between prosecuting wars and educating children.

Yesterday, Nutter completed his trifecta of awesomeness by signing two executive orders designed to increase police accountability and enhance public trust. The first order establishes a database so that all department pedestrian investigation reports, the products of the vicious and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program, can be easily filed and located. This system creates greater transparency for the program, allowing for the auditing and monitoring of investigative searches, detentions, and frisks. In addition, police will now be forced to conform to other procedural changes, such as carrying definition cards that explain the legal standards for stop and frisk, conducting automated audit procedures and producing quarterly reports of all audit findings.

If that weren't enough, the mayor also updated the procedures for filing complaints against police officers. The procedures aren't perfect - they still assume that police will play by the established rules despite mounds of evidence to the contrary. But this is by far the most responsible decision the mayor has made with regard to law enforcement in the past 3 1/2 years.

Of course, there's plenty of folk who will be cynical about these moves. Some will argue that Nutter had no choice but to join the chorus of America's mayors. If he had done anything different, he would have had no shot at taking over the organization and may have compromised any future political aspirations.

Others will say that his moves toward police accountability are nothing more than public smoke screens that will do nothing to stop the deep police corruption that is part and parcel of our city's culture. Many will conclude that Nutter was driven only by political, rather than ideological or moral, exigency.

Although it's tempting to succumb to this type of thinking, I'm willing to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt. Rather than question his intentions, I'm going to admire his results. Instead of pointing out the things he could have done differently or better, I'm going to take the opportunity to tip my hat to our city's chief executive for protecting our best interests. At least this week.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Daily News editor-at-large Marc Lamont Hill is an associate professor of education at Columbia University and host of "Our World With Black Enterprise," which airs at 6 a.m. Sundays on TV-One. Contact him at MLH@marclamonthill.com.