Pride & Purpose?

Spotted this on a random peek at Google News:

I'm really concerned that [Richmond (CA) Mayor Gayle McLaughlin] seems to have more of a personal agenda that may cloud her ability to effectively negotiate with Chevron. It's common practice for businesses to want and ask for tax reductions and its equally normal for city economic development officials (and that includes the Mayor) to structure rates that help businesses.

In all of my years in the public sector I've not seen or met a Mayor that didn't understand that, but Mayor McLaughlin's a new breed of activist city official. That's all well and good for getting elected but it seems to cloud one's ability to conduct the business of maintaining a municipality's economy. One can have their personal beliefs but when a city's unemployment rate is at almost 20 percent as is the case in Richmond, its a recession, and the job base has decreased by over 50 percent in the last two years, it's time to be more pragmatic and less antagonistic.

I'm surprised that the blog's author, Zennie Abraham, seems surprised, but then he might not be hip to Gayle's Green nature. Richmond's reward for the shunning of Chevron is cleaner air and one less industry expanding its footprint, which is absolutely her goal.

Of course, the trade-off is that the near-20 percent unemployment rate doesn't decrease, Richmond doesn't collect taxes from industry that doesn't happen, and the city still has all of the lovely crime to contend with.

The "City of Pride & Purpose" does it again.