Ceasar Mitchell scolds Council, guts his political career

• Joeff Davis

Quick, who was the last person elected Atlanta City Council president to later become mayor?

Actually, it's a trick question. Before famously unseating Sam Massell as mayor in 1973, the late Maynard Jackson served as Council president, but he hadn't been elected to that position. Rather, Jackson was elected vice mayor on the old Board of Aldermen and the job was changed to Council president during a mid-term charter revision. In the process, the city's second-banana position was greatly diminished as Atlanta adopted a strong-mayor form of government.

Since then, Council presidents Marvin Arrington, Robb Pitts, and Lisa Borders all lost mayoral bids. Put simply, the job is not a stepping stone to the mayor's suite.

Why the history lesson? To add some context to what essentially must be a political obituary for the seat's current occupant, Ceasar Mitchell.

Two Tuesdays ago, moments after the City Council voted 12-3 to approve proposed airport concessions contracts following eight hours of intense discussion, debate, and testimony, Mitchell opened fire on his exhausted colleagues from the podium:

We have a process that is in keeping with the citizens’ expectations of us and our role as Council members: to represent, to deliberate, to be transparent and to ensure accountability in city government. Unfortunately, in this process, I don’t believe we’ve been able to exercise those virtues and those responsibilities. Not because the administration came to us and said, Please vote now, even though we just gave you this (information) seven or eight hours ago. We’ve put ourselves in harm's way because we chose to put in place a process, or lack thereof, on our own volition, when we had the power and authority to put in place a process the citizens expect of us.

I realize the above statement is somewhat vague. In order to put it in proper context, you should know that Mitchell had called several Council members a few days before the Jan. 3 meeting to urge a delay of the airport vote. Clearly, he was unpersuasive. So his rebuke to Council that night was motivated at least in part because he felt they had erred by voting too hastily.

But I submit that Mitchell also took his colleagues to task out of frustration at being unheeded, ignored, and rendered irrelevant. Frustration at his own inability to bend the Council to his will. Frustration, finally, at seeing his political aspirations slipping away.