What will be the first business of order for the new city council?
l3wis I’m sure they have several things they will be looking at right away.
In fact, in their first meeting, they will elect chair and vice-chair (not sure how that will go, but most likely it will be Rolfing and Kiley).
There will also be appointments for the different committees, and I am sure there will be some interesting horse trading going on for those seats.
There is also the debate over the administration building and if the bond schedule can be overturned with a veto proof council.
Also, as I discussed about a month ago, there will probably be a discussion about changing public input. After watching the Mayor’s rant about it last Tuesday, I can almost guarantee, someone from either the administration or on the council is planning something.
Not sure what, but the fish is beginning to smell.
One of the main arguments for these changes, as the mayor brought up last Tuesday, is all the TIME city administrators, directors, councilors, janitors and any other city employee who must show up to these meetings is they are taking to long.
First off. They are all getting paid to be there. As for elected officials, they chose to run and to be there. As for citizens, we don’t always want to be there, but sometimes have to fight for our rights. And not only are we NOT getting paid, sometimes it costs us money to show up.
As for the time constraints, there is NOTHING in city charter limiting the time how long a meeting can go. In other words, if 2 people or 200 people want to testify about a specific item, there really isn’t constraints. Read section (c) below;
If a meeting is taking to long or councilors need a break, a recess of 5 minutes or up to 24 hours can be called (similar to a court case).
As for video cameras at such proceedings, section (e) covers that.
Lastly, public input is NOT ‘broken’. Why fix it? If anything, it needs to be expanded to 1st readings and to the informational meetings.
I will say this in closing, if a councilor(s) or the mayor think they are going to limit public input under my watch, they will see a fight like they have never seen before and any move towards limiting FREE SPEECH may result in a public shaming they have never seen the heights of. I guarantee it. Wanna poke the bear, start messing with my free speech rights. You won’t like what you see and I will bet you most major news organizations will be on board with us.
