It takes an election, apparently, to help the city council pass a
budget.

Within days of Commissioner Sam Adams‘ victory over Mayor
Tom Potter-endorsed Sho Dozono, tensions between Adams and the
mayor seem to have melted. While they were on opposite ends of a
budget standoff last week, by Friday afternoon, May 23, the
two—plus Commissioners Randy Leonard and Dan
Saltzman—hammered out a compromise budget that didn’t screw
over anyone. It’s also known as “a budget that we all support,” as
Potter’s Chief of Staff Austin Raglione put it more
tactfully.

“I think we, as a council, have ultimately achieved that, even
though it was ugly on the way there,” says Ty Kovatch, Leonard’s
chief of staff.

Adams got his transportation and arts funding, Saltzman scored a
domestic violence center, Leonard won cost-of-living increases
for a few social service agencies, and Potter’s Offices of Human
Relations and Youth Violence Prevention nabbed precious ongoing
dollars. The budget isn’t set for a vote until next week, but already
council staffers are kicking back, glad that the budget war of 2008 is
behind them

Meanwhile, Adams is gearing up for something I can only imagine he
scheduled when he was in full campaign mode and couldn’t pass up an
invitation, no matter how strange. Adams is slated to appear on the
Famous Mysterious Actor Show on June 4 at Berbati’s Pan, where
he’ll be interviewed by “‘Famous… the greatest entertainer on this
planet and three others.” If you’ve seen Famous in action, you already
know this will be a sight to behold. (Note to Sam: Good luck… you’re
going to need it!)

Commissioner-elect Nick Fish may not have any late-night
comedy shows in his appointment book, but he’s just as busy as Adams.
After pulling in around 61 percent of the vote on election night, he’s
got his eye on the second week of June, the earliest he might be
sworn in as the newest city commissioner. He has a busy few weeks ahead
of him before he officially takes the reins: “I have a mandate and an
independent spot. If the chemistry works out the way I think it will,
this will be a very productive council,” Fish says.

“I met with Tom Potter yesterday, and asked him some basic questions
about transition and protocol, bureau assignments and things like
that,” says Fish. He has “about two and a half weeks to do some
outreach” in hiring his new staff. “We’re going to cast a big
net, I want to bring some new energy into city hall, and I also want a
diverse staff. I invite anyone that wants to apply for a job, including
people from [former Commissioner Erik] Sten’s office, to apply for
positions.”

He also had lunch with the head of the housing bureau last week.
“Technically I have some discretion over bureau leadership, but I have
no intention of making changes now,” says Fish. “I’ve got six
months to manage the assignments I get from this mayor and then Mayor
Adams gets to assign bureaus as he chooses.”