Is the Mayor Overstepping His Position?

At the last City Council meeting Mayor Brede decided to play partisan politics and take a stand on the Constitutional Amendment concerning the definition of Marriage that will be on the ballot in November.  The Mayor said he “would strongly urge defeat”.  Since the Mayor is supposed to take a nonpartisan position and this amendment has nothing to do with his role as Mayor.Why is he using his position to try to influence others? We further contacted Denny Hanson, City Council President, to ask if the City Council was planning to take a position on this issue.  Here is his response:

As far as the constitutional amendment, the Council has no desire to weigh in on this issue and will not; we are a non-partisan group and we as a council plan to keep it that way.  The comments that the mayor made about this are his beliefs and not the city’s.

The Rochester Post Bulletin wrote an article on the Mayor’s comments here.  At the time of this posting there are 46 comments and not too many are supportive.