DN Editorial: Bob Brady turns up the heat on City Commission Chair Clark

GUESS WHO jumped on the bandwagon of reformers and others critical of City Commission Chairman Anthony Clark?

Democratic Party Chairman Bob Brady.

Brady told reporter Claudia Vargas this week that Clark was an "absolute disgrace" and should step down as chairman of the three-member commission, which oversees election operations in the city.

Clark has long been criticized for his work ethic - more precisely, his lack of a work ethic. Rarely seen at his office in City Hall, Clark has no city cellphone and no email contact with the office. He has been the subject of embarrassing stories that revealed he failed to vote in some recent elections. Finally, once he was re-elected as commission chair this year, he immediately applied to enter the city's notorious DROP retirement-incentive program and is due to get a lump sum of about $500,000 when he (officially) retires four years from now.

For all these services, he is paid $139,000 a year.

It was odd Brady unloaded on Clark this week, because Brady heads the Democratic Party organization that endorsed Clark for re-election last year - when Clark's no-show habits were already public knowledge.

Brady told Vargas he and Edgar "Sonny" Campbell, a leader of black ward leaders. sat down with Clark and told him, "You've got to do your job," and "We're not going to support you for chair." Brady said he got a hand-shake agreement from Clark on both points.

Lo and behold, though, when it came time this year to elect the commission chair, Clark voted for himself. He got another vote from Republican Commissioner Al Schmidt.

Lisa Deeley, who apparently thought she would be elected chair, sat in shocked silence and did not vote. So, it was Clark, 2-0.

There's the real source of Brady's anger. He thought he had a deal with Clark to step aside as chair and make way for Deeley, a longtime political activist and daughter of former Acting Sheriff Barbara Deeley.

With Clark so inactive, the office really is being run by Schmidt, who has done an excellent job in modernizing the department. Schmidt is an open-data advocate, who has done a lot to bring the department into the computer age. He has also reduced sick-leave abuse and absenteeism among department employees.

In explaining his vote, Schmidt said: "I wasn't elected to be a potted plant." Under the deal, Schmidt gets to be an active, in-charge commissioner. Clark gets to be a potted plant, paid $9,000 extra a year as chair.

Brady finds it difficult to deal with the fact a Republican is in charge of election operations in this thoroughly Democratic city, though he has no power to force Clark to step aside for Deeley. "I don't know what can be done," the party chair told Vargas.

Why not change the charter and abolish the elected position of City Commissioner, hire a professional to run the department, and have it overseen by a panel of judges to assure its independence? (A board of judges already oversees election operations in the year in which the commissioners are up for election.)

We would save more than $1 million a year in salary and benefits taxpayers shell out for the commissioners and their staffs. We would stop the silly shenanigans that so often to beset this office.

Besides. it would be so much cheaper to buy potted plants than to elect them.