Oracular Readers

During Monday night's meeting, one of our readers (at about a quarter past 11) sent a prescient e-mail to us at WhatsLeftOfMaplewood@yahoo.com:

While watching the meeting, am I reading too much into things, or are
the threesome, or parts thereof, trying to setup Chuck Ahl for a fall?
Could they be starting to position our temporary manager for the
permanent gig?

Good call.

In at least two ways on Monday, the council demonstrated their political incompetence: First, Xcel played them like a cheap kazoo; second, they managed to make Copeland permanent in the worst possible way, by doing it in the dark of night before an empty chamber, thus living up to all the bad things their detractors have said about them and their contempt for process and open governance.