That Silva Sure Can Dance--Just Don’t Ask Him to Lead

Quick, someone find Jim Silva a dance partner. No one this light on his feet should limit himself to soft-shoe solos.

Not since Astaire have we seen such nimbleness of foot. Just as Astaire took our breath away as he glided to and fro and spun marvelously in midair, so does our new supervisor.

What panache! What timing! How the crowd loves him!

This programming note: Silva can be seen nightly performing his routine to the sounds of the Orange County Republican Central Committee Orchestra.

Turns out this high school economics and civics teacher is quite a song-and-dance man.

First, the song: Little more than a month ago, Silva voted with his board colleagues to put the half-cent sales tax increase on the ballot.

Then, the dance: A few days ago, Silva appeared at a strategy session with anti-tax forces, spoke against the tax and said he probably will vote against it.

Here was the number he sang last week (if it’ll help, picture him in tux and tails, with a cane): “Philosophically, I felt I had to vote to put Measure R on the ballot, but I am opposed to tax and fee increases. While I am not coming out real hard against Measure R, philosophically, I don’t support new tax and fee increases.”

Methinks he doth philosophize too much.

Not to speak a foreign language to the supervisor, but the Measure R debate has little to do with philosophy and much to do with leadership.

Philosophically, to use a popular word, we already know the supervisors don’t like the tax. That isn’t exactly a news flash. Let’s go one step further: Measure R isn’t on the ballot as a test of whether the public likes sales-tax increases.

In language any entertainer will understand, let’s take it one more time from the top: Measure R is on the ballot because the board’s handpicked CEO says the county faces dire problems if the revenue isn’t generated. He says his staff considered other revenue ideas, but couldn’t think of any other realistic way to come up with the money.

That’s the story line, OK?

Maybe CEO William J. Popejoy is wrong. If Silva or any of the other supervisors think he is, it’s their responsibility--not someone else’s--to present the alternatives.

Silva says he wishes there were a Plan B. What gall. When he asked for our votes at election time, his implicit argument was that he was the best person to handle difficult problems.

So what does he do the first time we hand him one? He throws up his hands and complains that no one has come up with Plan B. If that’s all we needed in a supervisor, we could have elected a trained chimp to the board--and at a significant cost savings.

All I’ve asked from Measure R opponents is that they meet the same minimum requirement as Popejoy, who took pains to explain why the tax is necessary.

Opponents should, at the least, explain that 1) they don’t think Orange County faces a significant problem without the additional tax revenue or 2), if they do think the shortfall is serious but oppose the tax, that they have another way to generate the money.

All that requires of an elected politician is that he or she take a position and argue for it.

Silva, though, wants it both ways. He wants to say he put Measure R on the ballot so the public could decide, but that he opposes it. That’s disingenuous because the measure was sold all along as a last-resort proposition. By signing off on it, Silva and the other supervisors, in effect, endorsed it. If they’d had an alternative, you can bet they’d have introduced it.

They had no alternative and, give them their due, it took some political courage to trot the tax out. Having done so, it’s rather poor form to back out now. It’s sort of like signing up for the bucket brigade outside a burning building and then heading off for a sandwich break while your buddies keep working.

Silva probably doesn’t see it that way. His professed anguishing over this may seem to him like just one man’s vote, but it isn’t. Citizens already desperate for leadership on this vexing matter might easily conclude that if the supervisors aren’t convinced of the tax’s need, why should they support it?

If I were one of Silva’s board colleagues, I’d be highly peeved at him. He’s like the Broadway performer who doesn’t care if the show closes around him, as long as his reviews are good.

In fact, I’m rewriting my review on him. I was wowed by his artful footwork, but now I’m thinking he’s showing just what you fear from rookies their first time under the bright lights: a bad case of nerves.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.