Bass Park

It ain’t over ’til it’s over, Yogi Berra once said. He could have been talking about the Bangor City Council decision to lease Bass Park to a private operator, which kicked in a process that now is encumbered with two referenda (one over and one to come), and innumerable political, personality and agenda conflicts. In addition, in the distance, there are ominous legal rumblings.

Good grief.

Last week, Councilor Jeffrey Sosnaud submitted an order that would make binding the results of this month’s referendum on Bass Park, a citizen initiative that was decided on primary election day by a narrow majority of 14.7 percent of the city’s registered voters.

Endorsing the results of the 1,281 to 1,043 vote (which the public was told would be non-binding), should be unacceptable for the Council, and the public. One can imagine the howling that would have gone up had the vote turned out the other way and a similar order been introduced. Either way, it’s bad government.

The issue at the end of June is not whether the city should (as directed by the Council), or shouldn’t (as argued by the petitioners), negotiate a lease with Bass Park Associates. The issue now is process, and the process in this case has become so controversial and tainted that it would be in the city’s best interest to pull the plug on the whole affair, wipe clean the Bass Park slate and resolve to attempt the bidding process again. But this time to do it right, with rigid guidelines for participation, clear filing deadlines, and a clear expression of Council sentiment on the appropriateness of a submission from the city staff.

If this were just a matter of the Council defending a difficult but unpopular decision, that would be one thing. No question, but in that case the Council should stand firm.

But the legal and political ground on which everyone is standing at this moment is so insecure that there is only a minuscule possibility that anything approaching proper procedure could be adhered to, and there is no prospect for a final decision that anyone could live with.

Burned again by the dark forces that lurk in Bass Park, Bangor’s black hole of common sense, the city should fall back, regroup and venture in again when it has its act together.

Stay tuned.