City Council President Tony Dolce finds himself in a precarious position.

The Ward 2 Republican is the longest-tenured member of the council, but finds himself in a position he hasn’t dealt with during his lengthy city political career. Typically, Dolce found himself in a well-respected, but minority member of the council offering suggestions but rarely wielding major control over the city’s affairs. When Republicans regained control of the council in the 2019 election, Dolce was chosen as the council’s president.

Dolce finds himself leading a City Council different than many he served on in the past. For starters, he’s dealing with a largely new group of city administrators brought in by Mayor Eddie Sundquist. Those administrators bring a different viewpoint than former Mayor Sam Teresi’s team. Sundquist also has a different way of going about things than Teresi did, something that adds further complications to Dolce’s position. But perhaps the hardest thing Dolce deals with these days is a Republican majority whose members operate much differently than majorities in the past.

Those differences aren’t right or wrong. They’re simply different than the way things have always been done.

The problem for Dolce is an increasingly fraying tightrope upon which he walks. Dolce and his fellow Republicans often find themselves with differing opinions on programs Sundquist wants to implement. At the same time Dolce doesn’t want the council to be obstructionist simply for obstruction’s sake. That’s easier said than done when there isn’t always agreement among the council’s Republican members on things like contracts to oversee ARPA funding, appointments to city boards and commissions or how the city’s budget is put together each year.

COVID-19 has created an unprecedented time for Jamestown’s city government. The onset of the pandemic brought unprecedented financial uncertainty while federal stimulus money has brought unprecedented financial opportunity while removing the need to watch every penny the city spends — at least temporarily. As we said last week in this space, the city is on the brink of wasting a golden opportunity because the city administration and council can’t get on the same page.

In our opinion, the rest of this year brings perhaps the strongest test of his political leadership Dolce has ever faced. He must get Republicans on the same page, and then get the council’s Republicans on the same page as the Democratic administration. Dolce has shone the past two-and-a-half years trying to find an acceptable middle ground between the policies city voters backed when they elected Sundquist and the policies voters backed when they elected a Republican majority. Dolce’s leadership is one of the reasons Jamestown hasn’t devolved into the mess of public personal, petty and partisan politics often seen in government. After more than 30 years in the public eye, helping shepherd the city through a time unlike anything in recent city history could be Dolce’s biggest challenge — and his biggest achievement.