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Then, slinging Esmeralda across her strong shoulders, Mayor Kathy Porter shoved her way through the riot into the looming dark municipal building. Stopping just inside the door she turned and bellowed at the crowd "SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!"

Her Honor scrambled up the bell tower, the girl still on her back. The shout "SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!" was taken up by the councilmembers perched on gargoyles. Below them in the square the police chief squared his shoulders, saluted the mayor and councilmembers above, hit himself once on the head with his own truncheon, and reechoed the cry "SANCTUARY!"

That’s the essence of what happened at last night’s Takoma Park city council meeting. The actual details are more mundane but if you must know . . .

The newish police chief Ronald Ricucci has been concerned about the city’s 1985 “sanctuary law.” That ordinance, enacted to aid refugees of civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, forbids the city police to bust or assist in busting people for being “illegal”. The police are to ignore immigration status of arrestees and citizens, and they are not to cooperate with the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

The INS agency, since renamed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. It now maintains a data base of wanted persons that includes “deported felons.” According to the city’s background paper “deported felons” includes “persons who have been convicted of felony drug trafficking, felony firearms trafficking, or a serious violent crime” who have been deported but have re-ported themselves.

Chief Ricucci requested the council review sanctuary law and create a loophole that would allow city police to arrest these deported felons. This small change would keep the law, and the spirit of the law intact, he said.

The huge crowd that turned out to speak against any changes to the law disagreed with that, however. There were a few exceptions, notably a foreign-born woman who said that her family had played by the rules and waited their turn in line to become legal immigrants, so she urged the council to make the changes requested by Chief Ricucci in order to keep the city safer.

That was not to be however. The Mayor and council, following a long, impassioned citizen comment period and a presentation from the police chief, turned him down unanimously. It was not a hard put-down, though. It wasn’t an unreasonable request that the chief was making, they said, but, as the Mayor said, she was concerned with the impression even a small change to the law would give. She did not want to feed the current national anti-immigrant hysteria, nor did she want to create anxiety among the city’s immigrant population.

Good thing we have that Instant Runoff Voting system to settle multi-candidate elections! It will really come in handy this November!!

NOT!

No, Dear Readers, election day will be a good day to stay in bed and watch old movies, unless you live in Ward 3. That’s right, even though the mayor and two city councilmembers have stepped down (one to run for mayor) there is only ONE contested seat.

That’s how it came out at the October 2 Takoma Park Nominating Caucus, where candidates were officially registered, nominated, and seconded for the upcoming city election.

Bruce Williams, Ward 3 representative for another few months, is currently toasting his mayoral ascension in the nearest smoke-filled room, as no one stepped forward to challenge him. Newcomer Josh Wright is probably with Williams right now raising a glass to his own unopposed victory for Ward 1 representative. All the other wards will keep their incumbent councilmembers.

Ward 3, where people know that an election is a contest between at least two candidates, dad gum it, will see a race between gray-bearded Dan Robinson, longtime city activist and businessman, and un-bearded Bridget Bowers, an eager vessel of fresh blood, according to her nominator, brown-bearded Warren Holmes.

Mr. Holmes has the distinction of being the only speaker at Takoma Park’s Nominating Caucus to criticize, even indirectly, an opponent. Perhaps all the other speakers were unaware that there are SUPPOSED to be opponents in local elections and that those elections offer voters a choice between different ideas and people. Sadly, of course, in 6 out of 7 cases this is not the case.

Strategically casting Ms Bowers inexperience in city politics as an asset, Mr. Holmes touted her “new perspective,” and “fresh blood,” saying that new ideas and solutions are needed. HIs candidate was not only a leader who will take action and finish what she starts, she has a “shoulder you can cry on,” he said. As a nominator who understands the game, he managed to imply that her opponent has the opposite traits, and is “mired in the past.”

Unfortunately, in doing so he took a rhetorical path that led from explaining how he recently moved to Takoma Park, where his parents settled in 1968, because he embraced the values of their generation, to exhorting the voters not to be “stuck in the past.” But, never mind, he threw down the gauntlet, and that’s the important thing.

Ms. Bowers team won in the Gauntlet Throwing, but was a no-show in the Celebrity Fielding, and fatally weak in the Seconder Herding. She had only one serious seconder to her nomination, and neither nominator nor seconder were well-known, beloved, or connected activists, politicians, or residents.

Her opponent Dan Robinson may have won the Celebrity Fielding event with beloved longtime resident Belle Ziegler (who IS the Independence Day Parade). It’s hard to say, certainly Josh Wright is a contender with his celebrity Heather Mizeur, Maryland State Delegate and one-time city councilmember.

Dan also had TWO nominators, and five seconders, although one of them was Nellie Moxlie who also seconded Bowers just to be fair, so she sort of cancels herself out.

Dan’s seconders reflected his influence and interests. He’s been involved in various local commercial, nonprofit, and governmental projects for over two decades. He was a cofounder of the Takoma Voice, has been involved with the charitable Takoma Foundation, the Street Festival, Sustainable Takoma (play the JAWS music), Sligo Computer Services, the Green Team, The Takoma Zone music cooperative, and many city committees, to name just a few. A representative of the local Green Party seconded Dan, saying that group has endorsed him.

Your Gilbert has the feeling that Ms Bowers is going to get very tired of hearing people sincerely thank her for turning this into a real campaign even though they are voting for Dan. On the other hand, we are reminded of the last serious campaign in Ward 1, where a well-known, well-connected, longtime local activist lost to a young newcomer to city politics, Joy Austin-Lane.