Once upon a time, there was this hypothetical elected city leader.  And this hypothetical city leader rode herd on a rather unruly, eight-person hypothetical city council.  And the hypothetical city that they served was hypothetically governed by a Charter—passed down by generations before.

By tackling some hypothetically difficult issues and solving them, the hypothetical city leader and council developed some hypothetical political capital.  And the hypothetical city leader developed quite a bit of political capital with the unruly members of the council.

And it came to pass that an issue appeared before said council that dealt with hypothetically obeying the law.  However, due to a quirk in the hypothetically-governing Charter, the options available to the city council were hypothetically awful.

A hypothetically public hearing was called; public discussions occurred with the hypothetical city leader presiding. The hypothetical editorial board of the local paper weighed in; hypothetical patriots argued in circles with each other in hypothetical capital letters in the comments section.

Meetings were held by different hypothetical interest groups.  Hypothetical Retro-Sixties demonstrations were called for some hypothetically unclear reason.  Potential solutions were passed back and forth between hypothetically opposed groups dealing with the issue. No hypothetical solution could be agreed upon.

During the final week of discussion, the hypothetical elected city leader proposed a solution and hypothetically lobbied for it.  The unruly, eight-person hypothetical city council conferred with hypothetical political bases, with hypothetical supporters, and hypothetically with each other—taking care not to violate any hypothetical orb-in-the-sky state law.

Although hypothetically unhappy with the options, the unruly, eight-person hypothetical city council came to realize that the hypothetical option-being-lobbied-for by the hypothetical city leader might work, at least as a hypothetically stop-gap measure.  And so, hypothetically grumbling, the council arrived to do its work, one hypothetical member being absent for family reasons.

During the proceedings, hypothetical unruly member after unruly member weighed in on the hypothetical situation.  The hypothetical petitioners came in for their share of hypothetical criticism as well as spots of isolated hypothetical praise.  Hypothetical founding fathers were quoted; hypothetical statistics were bloated.  But at the end, it was time to vote . . . hypothetically speaking.

For some reason, the hypothetical city leader—who had been lobbying the hypothetical unruly council—suddenly, and without hypothetical warning, changed his vote.  The tally when the dust cleared:  4-4, which means the same as a hypothetical “no” vote.

Many hypothetical political watchers were baffled; the hypothetical clerk sent a text message to the dais to confirm that the hypothetical leader had not inadvertently hit the wrong button.  The hypothetical leader offered no reason for the change in vote prior to the adjourning of the meeting.

So, the issue will go before the hypothetical voters next year.  And the hypothetical city will bear a $140,000 expense for the election.  The ballot issue continues to have flaws—real, not hypothetical and the hypothetical city will have to pay to defend the measure—if it hypothetically passes—to the Supreme Court.

And that political capital that the hypothetical city leader had built up with the members of the unruly hypothetical council?  Well, it’s all hypothetical now.