Q: Mr. Federal Way, I was at the City Council meeting on Tuesday and noticed the mayor had some comments about the Mirror. What’s up with that?

A: Mr. Federal Way’s ears were burning Wednesday.

It wasn’t the kind of sixth-sense sensation you usually get when someone’s talking about you. It felt like the “you” in that last sentence was someone else, someone or something Mr. Federal Way has a fondness for. And it felt like the “talking” in that sentence was close to “whining like a spineless worm while clumsily attacking others so no one notices the shady nonsense going on.”

Based on that, Mr. Federal Way naturally headed to the city of Federal Way’s website.

Because he selflessly watches these things so you don’t have to, Mr. Federal Way opened up the newest City Council meeting video. He wasn’t expecting much, since the agenda indicated that it was going to be a rather ho-hum affair. You see, the city usually puts an agenda out prior to the council meetings so we, the writhing masses, can know in advance if they’ll be handling anything important.

The agenda sent out prior to Tuesday’s meeting didn’t reflect any important, sweeping policy changes. They were there, though: In valiant, not-shady-at-all fashion, the City Council voted to put an “emergency ordinance” on that night’s agenda, to be adopted in short order in a heroic fashion befitting such an emergency, that would sail right past the writhing masses’ ability to address such emergency change. Because transparency. Bold leadership. Action and such.

The “emergency” that prompted the ordinance was so serious that neither the council nor the mayor could really specify what it was. In such dire times, however, they did what any group of heroes would do: put a moratorium on apartment complexes getting developed.

Was Federal Way’s trio of murders the emergency? Such suggestions drew a stern “no” from Mayor Jim Ferrell and some of the councilmembers. Was it a reaction to last month’s “emergency council meeting,” where the writhing masses spent a jaw-dropping portion of a three-hour meeting about said murders complaining about apartments? Of course not, Ferrell said.

And then, in the midst of the emergency, the mayor gathered his composure and tackled the real issue; the issue that sent Mr. Federal Way’s ears aflame: the local community newspaper. You see, when the Mirror covered last month’s “emergency council meeting,” it had the gall to post it online with the headline, “Federal Way community defends, blames Section 8 housing for gun violence increase.” Because, you know, that’s what had happened at the meeting.

“I was frankly surprised at the headline in the Mirror,” Ferrell said. “That was really one of the greatest community moments that I can remember, where well over 500 people came to our city. And while a few people made comments about Section 8 housing and about affordable housing – if you were in the room, if you were up here at the dais where we were, the product of that meeting was not that.”

It was. The video is up right now; you can watch it. Sure, there were a few people who preached unity, but they only did so in response to the flood of speakers complaining about apartment-dwellers, Section 8-receivers, and affordable housing-livers. It was so bad that one of the murder victim’s mothers spoke twice: once at the beginning of the meeting, to talk about her loss, and once at the end. The second time was to make clear that her first message, and her grief, and her loss had nothing to do with Section 8 housing.

Mr. Federal Way is going to repeat that so it’s crystal clear: A shattered, grieving woman who had lost her son to senseless, cold-blooded murder not two days before had to stand up at that meeting to plead with its attendees to stop throwing stones at people who live in affordable housing.

Ferrell on Tuesday soldiered on, undaunted by “actual events” and unshackled from the oppressive chains of coherence: “The product of the meeting was… you could see this community coming together. And it was a beautiful moment in this community in which there was almost… there were so many people; they were lined six deep in the back and every chair was filled, and then we had the other two rooms. And when everybody left, the feeling was that this was not about affordable housing. There was no connection or nexus made; that what we need to do is come together to address these crimes.

“I just want to make sure, because I think… That headline has been referenced in some of the letters we’ve received, and I think it’s unfortunate because I don’t think that was truly representative of what happened. Anyway, does council want to comment on any of that?”

Councilwoman Dini Duclos, and God bless her usually hardened heart, absolutely wanted to comment on some of that. She stubbornly returned to the topic at hand to question whether the “emergency ordinance” had anything to do with the “emergency meeting” that had descended into bashing poor people.

“It really feels that way to me,” Duclos said. “If you were gonna have a moratorium, why don’t you make it on all housing?”

What followed her reasonable question was seven seconds of unreasonable silence. Mr. Federal Way counted. It’s painfully awkward.

“That’s the end of my comment,” she finally said, eliciting exactly no further answer.

The next comment, from Councilman Martin Moore, was equally reasonable: Is an ordinance halting apartment development really an “emergency”? Does the mayor think it’s likely that a developer will jam a permit through in the little while it would take to let the writhing masses have input?

Ferrell’s response, verbatim: “I actually can’t… I don’t want to say. I don’t want to say publicly. I… But I can tell you right now… I just can’t… I can’t get into it. But let me just say, do you really want to roll the dice? I mean, that’s the question. But I’ll leave that to you.”

In other words, you writhing masses: “None of your business.”

Got a question for Mr. Federal Way? Email your questions, complaints and hate mail to mrfederalway@federalwaymirror.com.