Brian Blair's Lads Face Dickens Fate

By DANIEL RUTH

Published: Aug 7, 2007

It is a wonderment how his fellow Hillsborough County commissioners, who must have the internal discipline of 1,000 Spartans, find the fortitude not to rise up and scream, "For the love of God and everything that is right and decent, please, oh please, will you just SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE &%$#@! UP!!!!!!" every time Brian Blair prepares to open his yap.

The commissioners would have been forgiven had they buried their heads in their hands and pounded their desks with incredulity last week, when Blair, who makes the Ronda Storms years seem like the Indira Gandhi era, proceeded to demonstrate he has more of a tin ear to public sensibilities than Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

In recent weeks, the commission has confronted the difficult task of trimming its budget. These are always distasteful exercises involving goring the cows of special interest groups, paring down pet projects and eliminating the livelihoods of hardworking civil servants.

Not Unreasonable

Indeed, the budget cuts will probably result in the loss of about 150 jobs.

So, given the belt-tightening, it was not altogether unreasonable for Commissioner Al Higginbotham to suggest that his colleagues might consider freezing their $91,000-a-year salaries and perhaps reduce other perks like their $600-a-month car allowance.

Of course, this idea went over about as big as Jake Plummer seeing Jon Gruden's number pop up on his caller ID.

Especially apoplectic was Brian Blair, who feared that giving up so much as a farthing of his taxpayer-funded salary would drive him into Joad familyesque destitution.

"I wake up every day to try to make a difference in this community," Blair said, which might suggest if the commissioner really wants to make a difference, he ought to sleep in more.

"But at the same time, I don't want to take food out of my …," Blair said, before stopping short of mentioning his children.

Show Us The Gun

As well, Blair got all huffy at the slightest hint of reducing his $600-a-month car allowance, sighing that the 600 clams "barely pays for what I have."

A simple request for Brian Blair: Please show us the gun that was put to your head forcing you to run for office.

You've been elected to a cushy job that pays you $91,000 a year, while county employees who are paid considerably less to actually make a difference in other people's lives are being laid off.

And yet you whine like a debutante with a broken nail over the prospect of reducing your car allowance?

For a $91,000-a-year county commissioner to engage in this false whimpering about his children going hungry when the children of the laid-off county workers might very well go hungry is little more than chintzy demagoguery.

It's a rather dubious probability that Blair's lads are going to find themselves sent off to a Dickens-like orphanage, begging Mr. Bumble for more gruel, please, simply because the commissioner had to take a car allowance deduction.

If Blair finds the financial constraints of his office so onerous he fears his children will be reduced to scavenging out of trash cans for sustenance, there's a pretty easy solution - resign from office.

Otherwise, will you please simply shut up and take a long nap?

Daniel Ruth's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.