© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2002
I dreamed I ran into the honorable mayor of St. Petersburg, Rick Baker, at the hot dog stand.
"How are the dogs?" I asked.
The mayor snapped his fingers. A spokesperson stepped forward.
"The mayor believes the hot dogs are excellent," she replied. "In saying this, in no way does he imply favoritism over other fine restaurants in the city."
I decided to ignore her and try again. "So, mayor, are you a slaw man, an onion man, or both?"
For an instant I had hopes he might answer, but the spokesperson again interjected.
"The mayor has not stated a preference on that question, and has great respect for those who prefer any or all combinations," she said.
"Does the mayor have laryngitis?" I asked.
"The mayor cannot be reached for comment," she said.
"But he is standing directly in front of me," I said, waving my hand in front of his face.
"Nonetheless," she insisted, "he cannot be reached for comment. Excuse me, but now we have to get back to our $60,000 to $85,000-a-year jobs of improving the educational system, and interacting smoothly with other governments."
I asked what she, or anybody in City Hall, which has no decisionmaking role whatsoever in the educational system, has done so far to improve the educational system.
As a follow-up, I also asked what would happen if St. Petersburg did not pay people to interact smoothly with other governments.
Would our interaction with other governments become un-smooth? Would they disconnect the roads at the city limits? Would St. Petersburg's state legislators, bereft of any reminders from City Hall, suddenly turn on their hometown viciously?
She declined comment.
I went down to City Hall, stumbling through the corridors, until I found a door that said:
OFFICE OF POLICY
($484,000 worth of it)
Inside, the telephone was ringing off the hook. People were declining comment all over the place. Doors led to individual offices, one of which was labeled, "Department of Ego-Stroking." I peeked inside and there were eight barber chairs set up.
City Council member John Bryan was sitting in one of these chairs, getting a manicure from a city staffer. A caravan of clerks wheeled in carts of boxes labeled, "Things That, For Pete's Sake, We'd Better Tell John Bryan About Before He Reads About Them In The Paper."
Bryan was rifling through the documents in the box, cackling with glee. "This is GREAT!" he exclaimed. "This Office of Policy is the best idea ever! This is almost as good as that pay raise and pension that I tried to get as soon as I got elected!"
In another office, I found a bespectacled woman with long, silver hair and a beatific mien sitting at a desk.
"Tish!" I said to the first deputy mayor, "thank goodness, a sensible person! Even when the mayor cannot be reached for comment, at least citizens can still talk to you and other top city officials to ask basic questions about what the city is doing with the public's money!"
But she shook her head, smiled wanly, and handed me a little card without speaking. It said: All inquiries should be coordinated through our Office of Policy, which, by the way, cannot be reached today for comment.
I left and drove down to the Boyd Hill Nature Park, where a single park ranger was simultaneously taking tickets, teaching four different nature classes to little kids, and trying to disentangle an angry fox squirrel from monofilament fishing line.
"You seem awfully busy," I said sympathetically. "It appears that the city has fired all the other rangers, among the 109 eliminated positions, so as to pay for the Office of Policy."
"I can't comment on that," he said.
I woke up and was happy to remember that the mayor is an intelligent man. Even if he ever got these kinds of notions, he would withdraw them in time. Even so, I reasoned, it would be wrong to let such an occasion pass without some small degree of ridicule.
-- You can contact Howard Troxler's spokesperson at (727) 893-8505 or at