I guess the next city council meeting is set for the 14th. I don’t want to miss it, especially because I expect four council members (Walker, Washburn, Brooks, and Sipes) to express their apologies to former (20-year) City Manager Roy Payne, our legal counsel, and the previous city council that approved the Owens and Minor tax revenue sharing contract 7 years ago. This unique contract has substantially benefited the City of Fillmore to the tune of about $1 million per year, and will continue to do so for the entire 20-year duration of the contract.

However, this good news has been trashed by the above Katzenjammers who have excoriated Mr. Payne, the former council, and our legal counsel, characterizing this hugely beneficial contract as something evil. They have denounced this contract as “immoral, dishonorable, and unethical.”

I expect to see the Katzenjammers line up before the dais to deliver their apologies and confess their errors. I can see it now, Gary Creagle (the non-resident leader, tutor of Jamey Brooks, and self-proclaimed man of means) remove his Foghorn-Leghorn cap before tearfully asking forgiveness. Then, Patti Walker, who once approved the contract, would say, “I was wrong, receiving $1 million each year for 20 years is a good thing, especially during this recession.” Washburn would be next. She also would repent of her excessive political ambition and fuzzy thinking. She should say something like, “How could I have been so foolish to criticize such a lawful, beneficial agreement, which has been blessed by the courts and the Board of Equalization!”

Then Jamey would step forth, glancing over his shoulder at the repentant Creagle, I can hear him say, “Creagle made me do it! He told me to swing my sword of righteousness at that contract and those responsible for creating it. I set out to cut costs but somehow ended up cutting revenue, and everything else in sight.”

Then it would be Sipes’ turn. I see him blushing with embarrassment over his many-years-worth of blustering condemnation of the contract, and the thought that his mom might not be pleased. I hear him reject his standard rebuke of the “unethical” tax contract, and see him and his mom publically demonstrate true ethics by recusing themselves from further participation in the city’s First Time Home Owners project, now a conflict of interest.

City Clerk and charter Katzenjammer, Clay Westling, would awake with a jolt in his official chair. He too would search the audience for some gesture of assistance from Creagle, siting in the back row with cap pulled over his eyes. Seeing none, Westling would plead that he was only following orders.

Ah – but these things are only in a dream.