At a candidates' forum the other night, City Councilman Howard Clement reported that, during his 22 1/2 years in office, he has detected no cronyism or nepotism at City Hall.

Contractors, architects, developers and taxpayers all over town must be feeling reassured.

Nepotism had absolutely nothing to do with the council's Aug. 1 decision to overrule city staff recommendations and award the $199,000 contract to design Walltown Park's recreation center to Clement's brother-in-law, George Williams.

And, nine years ago, cronyism had nothing to do with the city awarding the same individual an $11,000 contract to assess the town's cemetery needs -- not long after Williams was fired as Durham County manager.

Nor with the city's temporary early-retirement policy that bid former City Manager Orville Powell goodbye with $70,000 and former Police Chief Jackie McNeil $46,602 when he resigned under fire in 1997. Nor with the $2,600 a week Housing Authority consulting job awarded the inestimable James Tabron after he resigned amid controversy (to put it mildly) from that self-same institution.

It is the Durham way. Former mayor and council member Wense Grabarek tells of discovering a special account, in the 1950s, for municipal projects that were more equal than others. In 1930, Sheriff John Harward died in office, leaving the county $176,000 short of taxes he had written off for friends and well-wishers.

Now, this is old news. What's more amusing (to live in Durham, one must maintain a sense of humor) is the apparent cognitive dissonance reported between candidates aspiring to public offices and candidates already in them.

For some reason, the wannabes think Durham has problems. The in-crowd offers the equivalent of those immortal words from MAD magazine's poster boy Alfred E. Neuman: "What? Me worry?"

Durham has an apparently intractable crime problem, to which the best response anybody nominally in charge can come up with is another meeting or night-time basketball game.

Speaking of courts, the revolving doors of those in Durham show new results almost daily.

A Chapel Hill radio station started broadcasting from Durham and right away wanted to know about the "image problem." Slum housing has been a municipal embarrassment since 1940, and continues to line the pocketbooks of Durham's prominent and well-connected.

At the same event where Clement offered his reassurance, Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden is reported to have said it is incumbents' obligation to "be ambassadors for this place."

No. It's officeholders' job to look after the public welfare and if that means accentuating the negative, so be it.

And it's the public's job to see that officeholders do so.

Ninety percent of the city's electorate doesn't bother to vote. Go figure.