A recipe for disaster.

I have been unavailable for wrap ups for several meetings, due to work keeping me away from home with travel. However, today, I was able to have the council meeting on via channel 14, while I was handling work. I was in this position not because I was working late, but instead, because the City chose to hold the meeting at 3 PM.

Firstly, I was more than a little upset over the fact that the meeting started during the normal work day. To hold a meeting of such importance at a time that many of our residents would be at work, hardly meets the standard of working for the public good.

I was given the explanation that the sheer amount of items required an earlier meeting. In reality, the meeting starting at 3 PM was at Public Input time by 3:15 PM. The meeting was adjourned by 4:11, until 5:30, when they will present the 19 remaining "public hearings" which will mostly amount to a monotone presentation of the rambling modifications to various PDPs, and a handful of ayes and nays. This will of course, be followed up by the sometimes famous reports of Mayor and Council.

There are usually at least one or two of these public hearings that have a small presentation or a few questions, but generally, these things don't equate to the vast majority of time in council meetings.

Most of the council meetings which include anything of major interest are dominated by public input time, responses to the public input time, and the final reports of Mayor and Council. Today, the city has effectively eliminated the public input time, by having it in the middle of the afternoon. Therefore, there was very little to respond to.

Now if they could just do away with the bothersome reports, our council meetings could be over in no time!

Do you want that? I sure don't. I want the meetings to be filled with interested people. Residents paying attention, and making their opinions known. Why do I want all the contentious, rabble rousing? Because that is exactly what makes things happen. That is exactly how a city grows. That is how residents ensure that their future, and their investments are well cared for.

What happened today is a recipe for disaster. The city council should never allow public input to the items which they vote for occur in times where residents are unable to attend. Residents should consider their council, and the meetings that they hold, to be extremely approachable. What happened today was unacceptable, and should not be accepted by any resident, or land owner within our community.