Raymond B. Wallace, Jr., Wilder Attack City Council

On March 29, 2008, The Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH published a letter from Raymond B. Wallace, Jr. Entitled "Richmond Proves Buckley Right," Mr. Wallace's letter was an illogical, inaccurate, and irrational attack on the Richmond City Council.
The letter's caption and Wallace's preface reflect his pathetically absurd effort to relate a statement by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. to City Council and Richmond. Buckley said he would prefer to be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston phone directory than the Harvard University faculty.
Buckley's--highly debatable--point was that a random collection of "common" folk would govern better than "liberal" academics. But for some odd, peculiar, strange reason that reminds Wallace of Richmond City Council. How many liberal academics are on Council?
Three days later, on April 1, 2008, Mayor L. Douglas Wilder's VISIONS NEWSLETTER captioned "Notwithstanding Obstructionists, Richmond Moves Forward" quoted some of Wallace's nonsense:
"With one Council member generating gaseous platitudes calling a City official "crook," another playing nasty turf politics with a popularly-elected Mayor, a third continuing to excuse and blindly supporting the mediocrity of Richmond’s Public Schools at ridiculous cost, a repetitive majority refusing to give the Mayor his appointees, followed by their spending tens of thousands of City dollars in gotcha legal battles, Richmond citizens have been ill served."
Wallace has bought the Mayor's con game that the Mayor is the devoted public servant and the City Council is obstructionist. Not really, Mr. Wallace!
Let us move past Walace's criticism of three unnamed members of Council to his attack on a Council majority. A majority of Council has not refused "to give the Mayor his appointees." Rather, Council refused to confirm one nominee on the basis of his qualifications and his controversial behavior. And Council approved a subsequent nominee without opposition.
Why does Wallace and others think City Council should be a rubber stamp?
"Gotcha legal battles?!?" Hardly. Council filed one lawsuit and joined the Richmond Public Schools in a second. Council bent over backwards to accommodate the Mayor. It agreed to expand his powers. It used the only weapon it had after he declared the power to hire and fire its employees, advertised their positions and fired the one who did not reapply for her job.
City Council is hardly perfect. But now that Richmond has an executive branch of government and a legislative branch, City Council stands head and shoulders above the Mayor in credibility, ethics, integrity and professionalism.
That explains why the Mayor increased his public relations staff by thirty percent. He needs to search out the Wallaces of Richmond and try to project them as a majority.