Frye’s City Council? You’re kidding, right?

Those comedians who sit on the Union-Tribune‘s editorial board are up to more of their patented hijinks. Today’s editorial about what went down at Monday’s City Council meeting was a quite a hoot — just the thing for a hazy, lazy Wednesday morning.

Of course, these things are unsigned, so we don’t know exactly who wrote it, but it sure does have that Bob Kittle feel to it. It doesn’t savagely attack Mike Aguirre, so it probably wasn’t Chris Reed.

In addition to the typical anti-union hysteria, this editorial claims that Donna Frye is in control of the San Diego City Council. It even says so right in the headline: “The Frye City Council.” It goes on to say:

“Having lost the mayoral election, having been cited for negligence over fraudulent bond offerings, having been the lone vote against Mayor Jerry Sanders’ recovery plan, Councilwoman Donna Frye is now advancing her own agenda. It consists of thwarting Sanders’ reforms when possible, cementing her power base among public employee unions, and micromanaging city departments in defiance of the new “strong mayor” charter adopted by voters.”

Then it says it again:

“Welcome to the Frye City Council.”

I’m sure Donna Frye would love to be in charge of the City Council. After all, everyone knows she wants to be a leader; otherwise, she wouldn’t have run for mayor. But we’re betting Frye recalls two meetings that occured in December and January, one in which she practically begged to be allowed to chair the council’s audit committee — only to have the council’s real leader, Scott Peters, nominate someone else — and one in which her colleagues wouldn’t even agree to vote on a motion considering her for the post.

Boy, if she’s in control of the City Council, she has a funny way of throwing her weight around.

No, Kittle and friends are just upset that the City Council won’t let Mayor Jerry Sanders do whatever he wants, and Frye is a convenient target. The hilarious thing is that four other City Council members voted the same way. Why aren’t they blasted by the U-T for controlling the council and “advancing” their agendas?

By the way, the hubbub is over the council’s desire for Sanders to be required to seek permission from the council whenever he wants to alter a budget that the council’s already approved, insofar as it impacts public services. Here’s CityBeat‘s take on it.

Another rip-roaringly funny thing about the U-T editorial is that it implies that this was all Donna Frye’s idea. That would make some sense, because it is all about allowing the public — through the democratic process — to know what their mayor is up to. But unless Kittle knows something I don’t, this was a policy pushed by the council’s independent budget analyst, Andrea Tevlin. Kittle might want to read her report, because it clearly explains “service levels,” a concept Kittle obviously had so much trouble with.

Finally, whenever the U-T talks about taking time to “scrutinize” something, that must be code for “find a way to kill it.” Because more public scrutiny is precisely what Tevlin proposed and what Frye, Ben Hueso, Toni Atkins, Tony Young and Jim Madaffer voted for.