Ron Kubi gets another life, for now

The saga of Ron Kubi and Tiberias continues. While it started off as interesting and somewhat curious, Kubi has gotten boring and uninteresting in recent months. That being said, I have no idea if he is functioning well or poorly as  a mayor - the only news I hear about him is regarding his fighting with the haredi politicians.

Kubi last chance via extension, as per the courts, to pass the city budget and run the city as mayor has come and gone. With his failing to pass the budget, again, Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri had scheduled a hearing for Kubi as required before relieving him of his duties as mayor and appointing a Committee to run the city in his stead.

Kubi appealed to the Supreme Court again and the hearing was today.

Before stating what happened, I would comment that I did not understand the purpose of their previous decision. They allowed Kubi to continue in his position, but also allowed Deri to reinstate the city council despite the fact that they had resigned (as they had been required to as part of their final vote against the budget). Giving Kubi another chance while placing before him the same impediment that he has had for the past year seemed pointless to me, and it turned out to be pointless as they continued to block him from passing a budget and forming a coalition. The court should have either removed Kubi in favor of a committee or let Kubi back in but with a replacement city council (replaced by a committee). What was the point in putting everything back the exact same way it had been before?

Anyways, today's hearing throws the ball back into Deri's court again. No decision has yet been arrived at, but the State was unimpressed with the fact that Deri has called Kubi names, such as a troll, and also concluded that the government has two weeks to explain why the Minister of Interior does not appoint a new committee to function in place of the city council that resigned. And, to explain why Deri should not recuse himself from dealing with this, s a conflict of interest due to personal animosity between the two parties, and appoint another minister to handle things in his place regarding the issue of Ron Kubi.

What will happen? Who knows - definitely not me. The saga that looked like it was coming to an end is going to continue now for at least a little bit longer...

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