Thursday, May 22, 2003 Miller: Regain our faith   By Tom Hennessy Staff columnist "As through this world I ramble, I see lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun. Some with a fountain pen." -Woody Guthrie Over and over during the reign of former Long Beach City Manager Henry Taboada, those words from the "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" kept surfacing in my thoughts. Salaries rose. Pensions rose. The municipal deficit rose. The number of fat cats on the payroll rose. But the proverbial fountain pen, or its modern technological equivalent, kept scratching away, raiding the treasury as if doing so was a perfectly acceptable form of municipal government. Tuesday's swearing-in of Taboada's successor, Jerry Miller, has given hope to some that a new era has arrived. And that it is time, perhaps, for City Hall, i.e., Miller, to admit that, as can happen in any large institution, mistakes have been made in the past. Slip sliding away When someone is chosen over 30 other candidates for a job he did not want or said he did not want I'm not sure what the appropriate response should be. Thus, I don't know whether to congratulate Miller or offer sympathy. For now, I will opt for extending hearty congratulations. Sympathy might be more appropriate down the road. Miller's situation is not an enviable one. He inherits that enormous debt, plus a not very helpful City Council, including members who helped create the debt. He also inherits citizens who, in great measure, have lost faith with City Hall. They have no confidence that officials will do the right thing when it comes to limiting flights in and out of Long Beach Airport. Or that they will do the right thing regarding future plans for the 710 Freeway and the possible loss of housing. Or that they will do the right thing versus a port growth that is so expansive it threatens to swallow the city. Or that they will do the right thing to reduce or eliminate those $75 car washes and other obscene perks. Litmus test There is one way, perhaps, in which we can soon tell if Miller represents a new school of City Hall thought. And that lies in how he deals with the verdict in the John Morris case. As you doubtless know, Morris, the proprietor of Mum's restaurant on Pine Avenue, filed suit, accusing City Hall of retaliating against him in various ways because he had become a vocal critic of the Taboada administration. A jury found for Morris, awarding him $425,000 in compensatory damages and ordering Taboada to pay $7,500 in punitive damages. Anyone who tries to outguess the court system is playing an iffy game. But my own radar tells me the decision is not going to be reversed on appeal. A friend, an activist whose name you know but who does not want to be identified, agrees. He says this: "The city now has an opportunity to say, 'Yes, we may have messed up. And there are problems with the city's relationship with small businesses and with the community. So let's forget this case, get everyone to the table and forge a new path for the city.'" This would be a refreshing admission that things at City Hall were not as they should have been. No, this one act will not restore the lost faith of the people. But it will be a start. Go for it, Jerry. Forget the case and move on. Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at (562) 499-1270 or by e-mail at Scribe17@aol.com