Where’s Faulconer?

As I heard about the fight heating up between the City Council, mayor and city attorney about whether to raise firefighters’ pay, I thought of Councilman Kevin Faulconer.

I was interested to see what he would do. After all, he’s considered Mayor Jerry Sanders’ top ally on the City Council. He has also been able to get along well with the city attorney, whose clashes with Faulconer’s colleagues long ago reached historical significance.

Sanders has recommended that the City Council not give the city’s firefighters a raise for the third straight year. A majority of the City Council appears ready to backdoor him and do it anyway, and Aguirre’s doing his regular show by alleging illegalities.

So my attention wanders to Faulconer. Where did he come down yesterday? After all, while Faulconer may be allies with Sanders, he also gladly accepted the support of the firefighters union in his close City Council race not too long ago. At a time when both the candidates for mayor avoided endorsements from the city’s public employee unions, Faulconer, a Republican, embraced the firefighters union and it embraced him back.

Tuesday’s meeting, then, might have been uncomfortable for the councilman. Seems like a tough spot. Do you go with your Republican base and your close mayoral ally, or do you go with Ron Saathoff and the union that helped get you the job? What’d he do?

From the last line in the U-T story this morning.

Councilmen Kevin Faulconer and Jim Madaffer were absent yesterday.

I’ll call Faulconer’s office today and see what happened.

— SCOTT LEWIS