Councilman's Impassioned Soliloquy Foretells Less Guarded Speech at Council Chambers

Mr Bauters Crosses the 'Shit' Rubicon

Opinion
It came during a fervent verbal presentation by Council member John Bauters at the Council chambers Tuesday night; two utterances of the word "shit", resolutely affirmed and meant to underscore how impassioned he was on the topic at hand.  And what 'it' is, foretells an augmented and freer banter at the people's hall, citizens and their elected representatives speaking in a more colloquial, less constrained manner.

It seems like a new day.  Not in 37 years have we heard such language from an Emeryville City Council member in the Council chambers, cameras running.  A major deviation from the heretofore unspoken agreement proscribing such colorful vernaculars, Mr Bauters crossed the 'shit' Rubicon Tuesday night, inviting Emeryville residents to join him on the other side.
It's a position we'll gladly take on.

Council Member John Bauters
Fucking brilliant!

We have always only reluctantly signed on to the tacit understanding that the people's hall should be an evanescent and lofty place where everyday parlance is not raised enough and that citizens need to throw over their natural exuberant language, a cloak of Victorian bourgeois sensibilities.  The public commons have always been a contested place who's defense practically begs for such rakish and spritely speech.   And the new day that now beckons in Emeryville means we will not have to be so guarded as we speak our minds freely in our own hall.

The new decorum makes room for a better and more satisfying kind of admonishment at City Hall as citizens will now ask their City Council, "What the fuck?" and "What kind of shit is THIS?"; a vast improvement over the former, "I wish you wouldn't engage in this public policy..." or some other kind of weak shit like that.
Punctuated expletives aside, naysayers to the new courser polity in the Council chambers can rest assured; the people's hall remains the people's hall, democratic inclusiveness is unchanged by Mr Bauters' invitation to free speech.  Perhaps it's even strengthened.
And we say that's not a shitshow, rather, it's fucking awesome!