The Patriot has their coverage of the first Bates Council meeting up within 4 hours of the event, along with zoomable, non-crappy pictures! Ten points to Patriot!

There's three stories emerging from this, as far as I can tell. The first is the remarkable level of shoulder shrugging from Bates and his political allies about the 'unfortunate matter.' The Patriot saves the money quote for last, but I'll give you it first.

Bates added that although his lawyers suggest that a free paper can be legally thrown away, he “(doesn’t) want to argue that.”

“I may have been legally correct, but I have not been morally correct,” he said. “Whatever the (Alameda County) District Attorney comes up with, I will live by.”

The hell you will. If the DA decides to spank you good, you'll most likely come back with lawyers and argue fair usage of free newspapers. His reaction should be a wakeup call to all those who've been arguing that Mayor Bates will make restitution somehow, because he's that kind of guy. He's going to do nothing of the sort. In fact, he's been arguing that serving as mayor is somehow is punishment; his way of making things right. To continue the boring GWB parallel, if G-Dub got to serve as President to recompense his electoral shadiness, wouldn't we all be so pleased.

Bates' allies-- with the very notable exception of Mr. Worthington-- have been very vocal in how comfortable they are with all this, and how they'd probably do the same thing.

“Everyone that’s running for election has done the same dirty things; he just got caught. Why should he have to pay?” said Councilmember Margaret Breland.

Councilmember Linda Maio said of the theft that “everybody makes mistakes,” adding she considers Bates “a partner in my work for affordable housing.”

There's also yesterday's Shirek aide quote that 'I stole thousands when I thought they were going to attack Maudelle.'

The second story is how the Moderates have decided not to press this too harshly. Probably they're waiting for the DA to act, as Councilmember Wozniak states. But former Mayor Dean was nowhere in sight last night. Although I may've been looking too high.

The final story may be nothing, or it may be everything. The Progressives are backing away from Bates' proposal of a 'Rules Committee' to decide what gets put on the Council agenda. Since this was virtually Bates' only platform item, besides the pointless Education summit, perhaps the Progressives have decided that it's time for Mayor Bates to learn who still calls the shots on the City Council. Councilman Worthington backed down from running for mayor, but 'interest in defeating Shirley Dean' is not the same thing as 'interest in giving up control of the City Council to some new guy.' Time will tell if this is the case.Email This Post!