Vinny Palermo, Omaha City Council (D): “So I'm confused now. I'm confused.”

Brinker Harding, Omaha City Council (R): “You need a scorecard to figure out what's going on here.”

The bottom line of what’s going on, Republican Mayor Jean Stothert’s time off…time that often finds her elsewhere because when Stothert is out of town, mostly out of the state, she’s no longer in charge.

Stothert finds the rule outdated and asked the recent charter committee to change it and they did, passed it along to the city council, which decided not to change things.

Stothert called that decision “partisan and personal.”

She didn’t name names, but the Republican mayor was arguably pointing fingers at Democrat City Council President Pete Festersen, who is the first in line as acting mayor when Stothert is away.

Festersen’s argument, “Anything can happen in a city at any time.”

Which brings us to another city council vote on the issue, but not before reports, that the mayor took off 84 days in the last year hit the fan, with the mayor’s fellow Republican Aimee Melton coming to Stothert’s defense. 

Aimee Melton, Omaha City Council (R): “When you say the mayor was out of town 84 days, 84 days, we have 104 weekend days per year so a person that works a Monday through Friday job takes off 104 days a year. If they take Saturday and Sunday off that means that the mayor who only took 84 off for the most part was working six days a week when she was here.”

Palermo: “I don't care. Very few items that I ever hear 100 percent on, except for one and that was the executive branch being out of town. And I don't even care for how many days.”

Maybe, maybe not. Because the Council Vice-President, Democrat Vinny Palermo, quickly added this.

Palermo: "I'm not here to argue if it's 85 or a weekend. Maybe it was a weekend. Maybe it was days off and then you add the weekends to it, then you add the holidays to it. Who knows where we're at.”

In the end the Mayor’s plan failed and won’t go to the voters in November.

By the way, while all this is going on Stothert is out of town until September 10.