STREET TALK

Even Our Honor has domestic duties, it seems. At a recent City Council meeting, while a DART resolution was being discussed, the microphone picked up part of Mayor Annette Strauss’s phone conversation: “Charlotte? Is Mr. Strauss in?.. .Well, it’s in the freezer, isn’t it?”



“I’m through with politics,” said retiring (not shy and retiring) City Council member Jerry Rucker to one of his political friends before returning to a closed executive session, ’If I wasn’t, I’d be running for mayor. And the worst thing about that is I’d probably win. . .”



Attentive as usual: at a recent City Council meeting, while Public Works Director Cliff Keheley was giving a status report on the Ash Creek Flood-plain Management Plan, not a single council member was listening: Mayor Annette Strauss was eating something and talking to John Evans; Al Lipscomb was talking on his phone; Charles Tandy was eating and reading; Lori Palmer was having a whispered conversation with her aide; Al Gonzalez and Jerry Bartos were talking and laughing in the corner; and the rest of the council members were out of the room. City Secretary Bob Sloan smiled quizzically at Keheley, who hesitated, scratched his chin, and gallantly continued his presen-. tation. Maybe it won’t flood this spring…



More border problems: City Council member Jerry Bartos has been asking for months for some velvet ropes to separate the council’s horseshoe table from the public. Bartos sits on the end and he is often bothered by people wandering up to him and talking or passing notes to other council members. Well, in February, he finally got it. “But you know,” he says of the city staff, “they said it took them two hours to get that little bit set up…”