After attending nearly 600 city council meetings during the past 23 years I should know better than to leave early. Very often important details emerge in the final minutes.

That’s what happened last night. I couldn’t stand any more talk about Fillmore’s chicken problem. Besides, I like chickens; they’re noble creatures. The real problem which often drives me out of the chambers is fuzzy council chatter, discussions which are ill defined and badly articulated. These conversations meander amorphously from one council member to another. I think of our council as a sort of seedbed for future liberal politicians. It’s frightening.

I hear that Mr. Brooks, once again, asked for a RFQ (Request for Qualifications) with a bead set on our legal counsel. This is not the first time Mr. Brooks has attempted to replace city professionals, always with little thought for the consequences.

Our present law firm has been with us for more than 20 years. It voluntarily took a significant cut in remuneration to assist the city in difficult times. Legal Counsel Ted Schneider has successfully handled many lawsuits for us, many very important, like the Owens & Minor tax revenue case.

As I said, this is nothing new for Brooks, who once admitted from the dais that his decision was “...personal, very personal.” This is a man with few business qualifications. This is a man who, in the first hour on the dais as a new councilman, pronounced a series of demands, in his effort to secure “open government” and to “take our city back,” a man who threatened, “not to bring peace, but a sword”. Hmm – didn’t Matthew report words something like that?

But then, he’s a Katzenjammer, and Katzenjammers behave something like chickens, like roosters, strutting around, crowing about one thing or another, and leaving a trail of unsightly decisions.

Our council should forget about that RFQ. The cost of disrupting the flow of business by bringing in a new law firm, and getting it up to date on a myriad of ongoing legal issues would be counterproductive and unnecessarily expensive. Besides, Ted Schneider has done an excellent job of representing Fillmore. Proof of that is in the number of cases and issues he has won for us.

Speaking of chickens, Councilperson Brian Sipes noted that Councilman Conaway was absent for the second time. This was a work related absence, and is entirely proper. Brian, you’re getting to be as bad as former Councilwoman Patti Walker, who recently sent me a very bitter letter of complaint. This sort of petty politics is really chicken-like.

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On more important matters, I was stunned to learn that the life-snuffing business of abortion-on-demand, as practiced by the world’s largest abortion mill, Planned Parenthood, is asking for prayer – for more abortions. This bizarre idea is from Eureka, California, from the Six Rivers Planned Parenthood (SRPP). Read about it at “LifeSiteNews.com.”

Millions of babies waiting to be born hope those prayers go unanswered. They hope instead to soon laugh and play and see the light of day in their mother’s arms. Children are a joy. Without the gift of life no other gift is possible.