What started out as friction at Birmingham City Hall has turned into ... eviction.

Affliction.

I wish it was fiction.

I'm telling you Stephen King couldn't make this stuff up. And he invented the Crimson King, Lord of Discordia, which may or may not also be a dancing clown.

He's got nothing on Birmingham and its discordant clowns.

Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin, fresh from winning re-election to the council's highest office, this week ordered that all four members of the council who voted against him must move out of their offices at City Hall, and into other spaces on the corridor.

But at least two council members - Kim Rafferty and Valerie Abbott - balked.

"I respectfully decline the reassignment of my office and staff," Rafferty wrote to Austin Wednesday.

Abbott wrote that she will "not cooperate."

And all of a sudden duly elected council members were squatters. In their own offices.

This morning Council Administrator Cheryl Kidd, on orders from Austin, began the process of having the council members moved out. Kidd sought Public Works employees to physically clear out the offices so Austin supporters Sheila Tyson and Lashunda Scales could move into the spaces deemed more prestigious. Councilmen Jay Roberson and William Parker also were asked move, meaning that all council members would have to move, whether they wanted to or not.

The mayor's office, which has authority over Public Works and other city workers - including the locksmith - instructed employees to disregard the order. The mayor's office said city workers would help move council members, but only if they wanted to move. Rafferty and Abbott were the most resistant to the idea of moving. Both called it "punishment."

"I'm tired of being disrespected by my peers," Rafferty said. "We should not be pawns in the war he (Austin) is having with the Legislature and the mayor. We should be running the business of the city."

Austin - who also changed council parking spots and committee assignments as soon as he was elected - said all the council members will move, but disputed that it was an eviction.

"We are not in the eviction business," he said. "Everybody will move on their own."

But it doesn't look like it. Abbott - who has served on the council for 14 years and has worked in the same office for most of that time - said she has "grown weary of the pettiness of certain members of the council."

"I feel like I'm back in sixth grade," she said.

Boxes in the City Council hallway, and Councilwoman Kim Rafferty protecting her office.

Which might just be generous.

Austin also made requests for public works painters to fix minor damage in the offices and repair spots where pictures hung. Those requests had not been fulfilled today, because those painters were on jobs at recreation centers.

Where they are needed.

Where they ought to stay.

City employees don't need to be tied up in the council's petty conflicts, or in the tiresome battle between the mayor and council. They have enough on their plates trying to serve the people of Birmingham.

Which is what they were hired to do.

Which is what the politicians better learn to do.

This is not a kingdom. Or a Stephen King novel. It's a city, that needs to demand better.

Birmingham is in the middle of a $420 million budget process. It has construction bonds to approve. It faces murders almost every day, and needs street improvements and neighborhood attention and repair of parks. It has a thousand things in the works.

And for days council members squat and squabble over how far to move their stuff.

The next move is out.