She suspected that other factors were at work when she lost out on both. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was a case of the boys on the City Council ganging up on the only girl. “One could speculate about lots of scenarios,” she said.
Selection of the Vice Mayor went so fast it almost seemed like a fait accompli. In the same breath that Gary Silbiger was nominated for Mayor, Mr. Corlin was suggested for Vice Mayor. No other nominations were made. No resistance was offered. The choice of Mr. Corlin was of interest because he, perhaps more than anyone else on the City Council, has sparred and tangled with Ms. Gross. The Councilwoman said she did not make an objection because “there is class, and there is something else.”
The Three Have Teamed up Before
More bitterness was to come. With Mr. Rose having been smoothly voted in as Chair of the Redevelopment Agency, he needed a running mate. Mr. Corlin, last year’s Chair, nominated the new guy, Mr. Malsin. The mayor recommended Ms. Gross, who may become his new voting ally. Mr. Malsin, who enjoyed a heady opening evening, tacked up one more victory on a list that was growing long.
The closeness of the members of the majority voting bloc was no surprise since Mr. Rose and Mr. Corlin were Mr. Malsin’s co-managers during the recent campaign. What was striking for opening night was how boldly they struck, how consistenly they were aligned.
On the day after the meeting, Ms. Gross objected to a growing record of three to two votes against her. She detected the smell of conspiracy, although she did not use the term. After one three to two vote, she charged her loss to a conviction that “obviously the three of them had pre-planned their strategy right down to the details. They had a very choreographed game going.”
Ms. Gross was saddled with still another setback when she was knocked off of the Economic Development Committee. Traditionally at City Hall, committee assignments benignly are distributed on Reorganization Night. The exercise this time was Darwinian, survival of the fittest. If you had two dependable allies, you could accomplish your agenda and shut out the opposition. That is what Ms. Gross feared. “Steve Rose and I have been on the Economic Development Committee for two or three years,” she said. “We have worked excellently together.
“For Steve then to nominate Scott (Malsin) as the second member of the committee was a slap in the face to me.”
Voting blocs, especially new ones, were a hot topic yesterday. Voting blocs were liquid on the last Council. Mayor Albert Vera and Ms. Gross often voted alike. Mr. Corlin and Mr. Rose paired up, but probably not as often. Mr. Corlin and Mr. Silbiger were known as swing voters. None may exist on this edition of the Council.
“Looking across the dais Monday night,” Ms. Gross said, “I could remember when I voted with each one of them, both when we were in the minority and when we were in the majority.”
Ms. Gross, meanwhile, was left to ruminate about what could have been. In no way did the night lessen the tension that reliably runs between her and several other Council members.
Is It About Jealousy?
“There is a real jealousy component in this,” she said. “It could be about my connectedness with various (organizations, groups and individuals).” As the years have passed, Ms. Gross, known for serving on the largest number of committees and attending more meetings than any other elected official, has become an increasingly frequent target of jibes and barbs. She wants her colleagues to know she hears them. “They like to make snide remarks about me all the time,” she said. “They say I don’t have a real job. But I go to things they don’t want to go to. When I go, I get good information, and I make good contacts.”
Some Council members have complained about the irregularity of reports on meeting developments. “I am always amused,” Ms. Gross said, “that people will whine about you not reporting back to them. If I did every time, these guys would go ballistic because it would be fifteen minutes of I, I, I every week. Instead, I feed the information to staff, and I let them deal with it. You see, it’s not about me. It is about getting things done for the good of the city.”