Of The Year That Was
THE BIG STORIES, THE NOT-SO-BIG
STORIES AND HOW SOME OF
THEM ARE LINKED
by Dennis Reeves Cooper
Looking back at 2008,
there is not just one Story of the
Year, there are at least two:
• Former City Manager
Julio Avael is finally out of City
government. But he didn’t go
quietly. And he left a legacy of
sleaze that the new City Manager
has not, so far apparently,
been able to figure out how to
clean up.
• But there is some hope.
The Clean Sweep continued in
this year’s City elections.
When we wrote our review
of 2006 last December,
the story of the year was that
City Manager Avael, after 10
years on the job, was finally
on the way out. But the Mayor
and City Commissioners were
doing it in pieces. In April
2006, rather than fire Avael on
the spot, they opted to give
him a one-year “transitional”
contract— supposedly to give
them a whole year to search for
a new City Manager.
Humiliated, Julio began
to tell the media that he had
planned to retire anyway.
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