I was at an event last night honoring former Mayor Bart Peterson, and it made me realize how much this city needs his kind of leadership again.

We need vision and passion and ideas and inspiration.

Instead, we got a bumbling place-holder.

Sometimes, you have to lose something to truly appreciate it. Such was the feeling in the room last night.

The sad truth is that Greg Ballard, who accidentally wound up on the 25th floor, has done nothing for the past year to move our city forward. He’s a status quo guy. He’s cut ribbons on projects that Peterson brought here, and he’s touted initiatives that Peterson started.

He hasn’t innovated or created or imagined the greatness we should embrace. He sits. He mayors. He eats cheeseburgers.

But what happens next?

The honeymoon is over, prolonged in fact by two separate presidential campaigns that dominated politics here. More importantly, the predecessor well is running dry. What economic development deals are in the pipeline? What big plans have been laid out for the next three years? What are we doing to compete with other cities?

One more thing: Sooner rather than later, Ballard is going to have to deal with the serious local government budget crunch caused by his Governor’s magical 1-2-3 property tax caps, so you can probably kiss his plans to repeal the COIT increase buh-bye.

These aren’t happy times. Now that we’re out of the national spotlight, it’s time to get local and get our act together.

From a political perspective, that means finding someone — a hack can only dream that Peterson will make another run for it — who can articulate a passionate vision and who has the skill set to implement it.

My greatest fear is that all of the Democrats who are out there right now talking about running for Mayor will actually do it.

What Ballard lacks in eloquence and smarts will be made up for via lots of money raised for him by the people who have a vested interest in making sure he stays in that office and keeps handing them huge contracts.

We have to nominate someone who knows why he or she wants the job and who will wake up every day with this city’s future in mind. We also have to make sure that person is willing to stand up to the people on both sides of the aisle who don’t wake up every day with the city’s future in mind.

The one thing we can’t do is take for granted that we’ll win no matter who’s on the ticket.