This article has an important update today (11/07/2022)
This a snapshot from our Future Agendas Report taken today. Every City has some form of official calendar like this. I’ve written about this issue before but it’s worth re-visiting because it’s not exactly getting better.
First off, there are no meetings on November 10th. (They were moved to November 17th weeks ago.) But even more important, there’s no there there. It’s usually not filled in with anything meaningful, literally until the week of the meeting.
Also, at every meeting, the Council is blindsided with unannounced presentations and proposals, including the one at our last meeting where we were expected to vote on an ordinance with zero notice.
No other nearby City functions like this. No public corporation would function like that. Every other City Council I’m aware of dedicates at least some time periodically fleshing out their future meetings calendar. We never do. So it is the case that we have (cough) ‘planning meetings’ in April for items that never actually get on the calendar.
(In fact, there are items the Council voted on last year, which still haven’t made it to this year’s calendar.) The entire Council calendar is truly a black box.
And if the Council itself has no idea what’s coming, there is no way in hell that residents can become engaged.
At one of the first meetings I had with the City Manager, I asked to see an example of his administration’s planning calendar. He looked puzzled and said there wasn’t one. That cannot be the case. There has to be a planning calendar. It may not be public facing, but you cannot run a business our size without a working calendar.
It must be seen that the administration finds this climate of ‘need to know’ preferable. The less information one shares, the less opposition one will receive.
Wanna hear an irony? I hear from peers in other cities that doing these Weekly Updates simply helps people push back against me. I actually tell people what I think, where I’m going, what I plan to do. How stupid is that? (Or so goes the argument.) I don’t know how to respond to that except to say this: If you really believe in ‘democracy’ you cannot treat this like a poker game. You have to be open.
Democracy is information
I do not think it is a coincidence that democratic government in America has been so tightly linked with the free market. A free market provides great results–but only when all sides have access to the same information. That’s the key: buyers and sellers all knowing exactly the same things. That is how you are able to get to the fair price for anything you buy or sell.
But that is also the weakness. If one party has information the other side lacks? The game is up. The incentive to have an ‘edge’, to know something the other guy does not, to ‘play your cards close to the vest’, is almost irresistible. And that is what leads to the cynicism most of us feel today.
Politics is exactly the same. If one side has more information, of course they can (and will) run the table. But then it’s not democracy; it’s a poker game.
- We have a terrible Futures report because it is to the Administration/Majority’s advantage to have a terrible Futures report.
- We have a terrible web site because it is to the Administration/Majority’s advantage to have a terrible web site.
- We have such poor public engagement because it is to the Administration/Majority’s advantage to have poor public engagement.
But on the other hand, if you think things here are going great, than all of the above is just sour grapes. It’s only ‘bad’ because you’re not the one running the table, Harris! 😀
Look, just talking about a blank Future Agendas Report is probably too abstract for most people to care. Residents will (rightly) demand to know about Crime! Taxes! And all their other immediate concerns.
But a City Council is about planning and oversight. It’s not meant to react to events. We’re supposed to create policies to prevent crime, to make sure the roads don’t fail, to make sure there are all sorts of things taken care of in advance. And I don’t know how we can say we’re doing that properly if the entire Council (and you) don’t all have access to the same information. Without that, it’s not a free market; you can’t be sure you’re getting the best deal and there can be no accountability.
Update: 11/07/2022: At some time today, the Future Agendas Report was updated to include the preliminary agenda for the 11/17/2022 meeting. QED.
Comments