‘First semester’ too early to make judgments
IN READING (the June 8) Journal, the op-ed page offered an article by Pete Dinelli. Apparently someone died and he appointed himself principal of the school of public critical acclaim.
As a former city councilor and chief public safety officer he has taken it upon himself to criticize and grade the performance of newly elected mayor, Tim Keller. After six months Keller has earned an overall grade of “C,” according to Dinelli.
Likening Keller’s tenure to the first semester of a four-year college institution, he has survived this semester but his graduation — or, rather in Dinelli’s comparison, his chance of re-election to mayor — is looking quite glum.
I find it interesting the only “A” grade is for public relations. The mayor receives a “C” in public safety, as “Albuquerque continues to have high crime rates and the murder rate is out of control.” His grades of “D” in Albuquerque Police Department reform and “F” in economic development round out his grade card resulting in the overall “C” grade.
Dinelli seems overly critical in my opinion of someone only six months in office. Even a college freshman has time following his first semester to decide if he wants to continue seeking his college degree or reset his sights on another career path. Although I don’t know Keller personally, I’m betting he isn’t opting out of his four-year stint as mayor after his “first semester,” so he still has seven semesters to make changes and achieve better grades. Even a college freshman isn’t called into the counselor’s office after a single semester and criticized for his grades.
Maybe it is sour grapes driving Pete Dinelli’s criticism. Why not heap the burden of the ART project on Keller while pointing fingers? He hasn’t solved that problem in six months either. Personally I think it is a bit early for someone to publicly ridicule a man who has inherited a host of problems that Richard Berry left behind. Can’t we wait at least a year before we condemn his work as only satisfactory? Wonder what kind of grade our previous mayor merited?