House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) would love this bunch.
First, they’re on the verge of passing a needless and silly city parks smoke ban, based on not one documented resident complaint, their first step in turning their town into the first North Fulton “Nanny City.”

Next, they spend taxpayer money they don’t have, mortgage their constituents’ future and refuse to cut government operating expenses in an era of declining revenues and national austerity. They’re beholden to a burgeoning local government and an entrenched bureaucracy run amok, lacking in political courage and devoid of the chutzpa it takes to make tough decisions when warranted. They’re the government worker’s best friend, promising virtual “jobs for life” when regular folks are being furloughed, laid off, downsized or outright fired. They’re the new liberals of the North Side.

They’re the Roswell city council.

Their names are Becky Wynn, Nancy Diamond, Rich Dippolito, Jerry Orlans, Betty Price, and Kent Igleheart.

We’ll coin them: “The Pelosi Six.”

Faced with declining revenues and a shrinking reserve fund that promises to disappear in a sea of red ink by 2015, “The Pelosi Six” bounced Mayor Jere Wood’s proposed staff reduction budget cuts back to him like a worn out beach ball at a sea shore jamboree.

Wood, true-blue to his 2009 re-election run-off campaign promise to trim the city’s bloated payroll, recommended 10 job eliminations in the Roswell’s Community Development Department. Why? Because those staffers have very little work to do. Their business -- permits and zoning requests -- is off by more than 60 percent in two years.

But “The Pelosi Six” would have none of it. Instead, they cut what amounted to two benign positions and one part-timer. 

Faced with a similar situation a few miles down Roswell Road, the new city of Sandy Springs wiped out 22 unnecessary jobs.

Now that’s a city council.

This council’s lame and pathetic response to their city’s FY 2010-11 looming deficit was to shamelessly disguise their lack of political will as a “balanced budget” by pillaging the municipality’s capital reserve fund. This will likely result in a serious infrastructure deterioration of taxpayer owned city assets.

This deficit budget not only spends down reserves for capital projects, it spends down reserves for operating expenses. This business model is doomed and we’re destined to endure a tax increase as a result of this council’s inability to make hard choices when it counts. 

Rather than stand tall and make the necessary expense cuts now, “The Pelosi Six” are banking on Roswell’s “Early Retirement Initiative,” dubbed “ERI” by insiders, to give them the political cover they need to shirk the tough decisions. They’re hoping that enough city employees will take the early buyout plan and just voluntarily go off peacefully into the retirement sunset. Why, they can even throw each of them a party, complete with cakes and cookies. So much better than a pink slip, right?

It’s a politically gutless position if there ever was one.

But Roswell Mayor Jere Wood has seen enough.  He vows to veto the whole darn thing.

Wood, after garnering just 40 percent of the popular vote on the first ballot in his own election bid for a fourth term last November, undoubtedly took notice of one of his opponent’s main message: budget austerity. The day after the votes were tallied, as he readied himself for a run-off with the perceived front-runner David Tolleson, Wood called third place finisher Lori Henry and told her he’d cut operating expenses in the next budget cycle. Henry bought it, and endorsed her former political nemesis. Wood went on the win the December election by less than 100 votes out of over 10,000 cast, with Henry’s help.

“I think that it is criminal in this economic environment that this council chose not to take a leadership role. Instead, they chose to stick their heads in the sand at the expense of the taxpayers of Roswell,” Henry said.

Some say political promises are cheap. But not to Wood; they represent his word. In an era of growing political cynicism, Wood did what he said he would do. He attempted to trim the city’s burgeoning operating expense base, the old fashioned way. He put his political will where his mouth is.

Now that’s a mayor.