It’s been over a month since Mayor Donna Deegan took office. Besides learning the day-to-day role of the job and proposing her first budget, the new mayor’s most important task is to form a team to help her govern and carry out the vision that she campaigned on. 

While there has been some persistent grumbling from the chattering class about her new leadership team’s being too “politician heavy” (nearly a dozen former elected officials and candidates by my count), I believe the mayor has made some sound choices.

Chief Administrative Officer Karen Bowling is highly regarded and is known as a competent executive. The appointment of City Council veterans like Scott Wilson will provide the mayor with institutional knowledge that will be crucial as the Council debates her first budget.

However, Deegan is working on borrowed time. A new administration has a finite amount of political capital to work with in its first years of governing. Choosing how to spend that capital can be the difference between securing a second term or becoming an administration paralyzed by inaction, à la Mayor Alvin Brown. 

In other words, the political “honeymoon” only lasts so long.

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This is what makes Deegan’s appointment of Al Ferraro, a former Republican Council member and candidate for mayor, to lead the city’s Neighborhoods Department, so baffling. 

There’s a fine line between seeking bipartisanship in governing and pushing a nominee that risks weighing down Deegan’s entire agenda – and potentially sparking an unnecessary fight with City Council.

Conflicts abound with Ferraro’s nomination.  

While the mayor’s budget includes $500,000 to remove Confederate Monuments, Ferraro publicly opposed the removal of Confederate Monuments in his run for mayor and said removing them would lead “activists” to potentially rename the whole city. 

While Deegan championed diversity and inclusion throughout her campaign, her appointment of Ferraro also demotes the previous director, one of only a few African American directors on city staff.

Deegan promised to put an end to perceptions of backroom deals and favoritism, but soon after Ferraro’s appointment – as Ferraro is actively lobbying Council members for their vote to approve his appointment – he hired the wife of a Council member as his assistant. 

While Deegan campaigned on restoring honesty and integrity to local government, Ferraro initially did not pay thousands of dollars in fines he owed to the very same department he would now lead. It wasn’t until local media made public records requests to uncover this story that Ferraro chose to finally pay his fines. 

In addition, and in a stunning failure for Deegan’s communications team, Ferraro told the press that he didn’t want to pay the fines because it was something he “didn’t believe in” and effectively accused his own Neighborhoods Department of participating in political retribution. 

In any circumstance, Ferraro’s appointment would be a heavy lift. But to cap it all off, his appointment requires a special exemption because he does not have the college education required under city law. I am not here to pass judgment on a person for not having a college degree, but this oversight by the mayor’s office in not vetting a nominee’s background is an unnecessary own goal and provides members of Council an easy pathway to launch their first substantive critique of the mayor.

Wisely, Mayor Deegan has decided to put a two week “deferral” of Ferraro’s nomination in front of City Council, as A.G. Gancarski reports, in order for Ferraro to have “conversations with City Council members” before the future confirmation vote.

However, this deferral is just delaying the inevitable. Given that Ferraro has never chaired a major committee in his eight years on Council and none of his former colleagues supported his run for mayor, I feel confident that Ferraro will never receive the necessary 10 votes to confirm his nomination.

Deegan would be wise to make the deferral permanent. There’s no reason to take a loss this early into her tenure – before the honeymoon is even over.