The great American patriot Samuel Adams said
”
The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of
public men.
”
With that in mind, I found it rather amusing reading in The
Dispatch Feb. 27 about the personality patterns and behavioral
dimensions (i.e. old fashioned character traits) of Gilroy’s city
councilmen.
The great American patriot Samuel Adams said “The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” With that in mind, I found it rather amusing reading in The Dispatch Feb. 27 about the personality patterns and behavioral dimensions (i.e. old fashioned character traits) of Gilroy’s city councilmen.
As the article indicated, this was the result of a personality test called “dominance” they all recently took before attending a two-day retreat to grapple over big Gilroy political issues now to local election day 2005.
While the published results in The Dispatch all seem to be politically correct, I’m always leery when no negative character/personality traits are published for these kind of things. Obviously none of these seven men walk on water, and it just seems to me to be a little bit disingenuous to publish only the positives.
First, it’s too bad that Mayor Al Pinheiro with his identified personality trait of “dominant” couldn’t get that trait into action in order to silence the Wal-Mart foes at the Feb. 17 council meeting. The mayor had repeated opportunities to be “dominant” and tell the crowd “look people, if you clap one more time, I’ll have you thrown out of this meeting. I’m in charge here, and you’ll follow my rules or else.” But alas, no such dominance occurred. Al seemed to exercise the control of a substitute teacher in a high school classroom, and simply kept suggesting that it would really be nice if order was maintained. From what I observed that evening I still think the mayor can continue to improve on his “dominant” personality trait.
In addition, I always laugh at a “results-oriented” label stuck on anyone. One can look back into history and see that such people as Nero, Napoleon, and Mao were “results-oriented,” too. The question should be results-oriented to what end?
Next, it looks like the only guy on the Council that will be able to make things happen in 2004 is Bob Dillon, since he’s the only one of seven identified as being “influential.” But it seems that Bob’s influence-level gage was on empty the night of Feb. 17 and did not have enough pizzazz to get the Council to approve the passage of the Wal-Mart measure that evening.
As I’m sure all you Dispatch readers know by now, the final vote was shelved for the next Council session. It seems that the “perfectionists” won out at least for now, over the “influential.” So let’s hope Bob is able to put some high-octane influence into his tank for the next Council vote on Wal-Mart.
Speaking of “perfectionist”, does that mean that Councilman Charlie Morales makes sure that his personal tank is full of alcohol now and then (to a perfectionist level of course) before he gets into his car to drive after socializing? Adding insult to injury for the people of Gilroy, Morales, who as The Dispatch says “is embattled with more than one drunken driving arrest,” seems to also apply his personality trait of “steadiness” in flat out refusing to resign from the Council for his social “errors” of bad judgment (i.e. DUIs). Now while some liberals will argue that what a politician does in private is not public business (a-la the Bill Clinton capers), the fact remains that Morales was arrested and was convicted for DUI, and that in itself makes his actions for the people of Gilroy no longer private.
Just remember that drunkenness is no virtue of character. And a DUI shows a driver doesn’t give a rip about the safety of others. As John Adams said “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”
But I guess that public virtue doesn’t apply to Gilroy political jocks.
Finally, speaking of Gilroy political jocks, I can’t leave out Paul Correa. Correa finally nailed it on the head when he said that maybe he (according to one personality test he took) should have been a park ranger. Yep, he should be out there with the trees and the birds and the bees. It was Mr. “Conscientious” himself who was a no-show at the orientation for new City Council members back in January. While Correa apparently did attend a one-on-one make up session with the department heads of city government, his conscientiousness took them away from their busy schedules in order to fit into his schedule agenda. Correa, who said he agrees with the assessment
that he’s an “objective thinker”, (like maybe “I object to everything conservatives stand for …”) seems to also confirm that he’s a perfectionist with such a quote as “I’ve never been behind the curve,” (Dispatch article Jan. 15) Maybe that’s true, unless you consider how “behind the union curve” he’s been and continues to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if even his shorts bear the union label. Objective? Uh, doubtful.
So what does this whole exercise of personality patterns really prove? Maybe not much. According to Dr. Marilyn Manning who administered the test, “the names are more for convenience than for actual definition.” I wonder how much the city paid to find out this convenience? And will the good citizens of Gilroy be paying more in the future so that the Council can govern with even more “cohesiveness”? If cohesiveness does indeed have the characteristic of glue, then maybe we’re going to be “stuck” in these personality modus operandi for a long time.
