The outgoing mayor is not in a good mood these days. And when he's uber-stressed, he gets to feeling threatened and charges around like a snorting bull.

What's been happening of late to put him in such a peevish place?

Not in any particular order, let's start with the Dummies in the Trees. As in, what dummy thought that it was festive to hang effigies from trees, a blatant reminder of an ugly and not-so-distant past? The strange fruit wasn't hung with bad intent, but from plain old ignorance.

When complaints started coming into City Hall, Holtzinger had an easy decision. Take them down. Or at least dress them like ghosts or witches, symbols that are better suited to Halloween spookiness than the image of lynched blacks. In a park, by the way, that once didn't allow blacks to "trespass" after dark.

But the mayor dug in and didn't want to be ordered about by local NAACP prez Guy Djoken. Djoken is a genius at drumming up bad press for local politicos, and the mayor let personal pride trump common sense. When the television crews ambushed him, Holtzinger belatedly ordered them down. But not before lamely noting, "This isn't the kind of rope you hang people with."

Now he had folks on both side of the debate irate.

Then there's Mulchgate, or more accurately, mulch ado about nothing. City staffers knew of plans for Donna Kuzemchak's son's wedding since April 2008. They told her they'd spruce it up as they would for any special event and that it was part of their annual maintenance. They didn't tell her that their idea of "sprucing" meant ripping out rosebushes the week before so that the beds looked like a still shot from "Groundhogs Gone Wild." Staffers know the truth, whether they admitted it to Hizzoner or not.

But truth is a pesky thing when the chance is ripe to rip into your nemesis on a local radio show the day before an election.

And then there's Election Day. Holtzinger's two favorite colleagues were out in favor of new blood. The mayor took it personally.

"I thought people were pretty well satisfied," he told The FNP. Meanwhile, Anne Leffler of the city's election board summed it up another way for The Gazette, calling it "a sign" that people were unhappy with the current administration.

Then there's the day after the election when the mayor blew a gasket at Kuzemchak in the mayor's suite. He wasn't discreet, so it's no secret he followed the ousted alderman from his office in a rage, huffing and puffing in a manner unbefitting a mayor, or any adult, for that matter.

Lastly, there's the Public Information Act request from Commissioner Lennie Thompson, accusing Holtzinger of holding meetings to wrest fire companies from county control.

Take a breath, mayor. It's less than five weeks; don't make them bitter ones. Show us the best of you. You know, the funny, easy-going good ol' boy who likes riding on trash trucks and loves his family.

And remember, you can always find solace in this: While your best buds are gone, the two you most reviled during your City Hall days, Dougherty and Kuzemchak, won't be there either.

kheerbrandt@yahoo.com

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