Urban Renewal Project
I am working with the local merchants association to help them take some sort of control over the upcoming meetings between the Urban Renewal Agency & the Leland Consulting Group. Basically, I'm helping the merchants organize & rally the troops so they can be a force at the upcoming meetings. It will be interesting to see what transpires... I'm looking foreword to watching how it will "spin". I'm not sure just how much experience most of the downtown merchants have had dealing with local government bamboozling tactics. For one thing the local government is good at is springing things on the public at the last minute. For instance, government agencies only have to give a 5 day notice for public meetings, this means posting a flyer down at the Library & sending out a press release to the paper. We received the press release from the URA for these particular meetings, today (Friday) for the above meeting scheduled for next Tuesday. The newspaper gets printed on Monday. On Tuesday the paper gets mailed to the subscribers. Our local subscribers usually receive their paper on Wednesday. So, this public meetings will be over before most of the public even knows about it!
"Being in the know" in this situation means understanding & anticipating the importance of an upcoming event in advance to it's announcement.
How is this done?
Only by attending all the public meetings in your municipality, & paying attention to everything that is said at those meetings.
It's a monumental task.
I record everything on my pulse smartpen & listen to it later. I use the device a lot for work, so when I write an article I don't have to worry about remembering what people say & I don't have to write it down long hand.
Reading between the lines & having a suspicious & cynical nature helps.
posted by Rita @ 7:11 PM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
Your involvement has inspired me to go to my local municipal council meetings, however, they have so far always been on nights that my son has soccer. As I am a coach on his team I can't be absent. Maybe in the fall.
i've never tried to use these modern technologies in my meetings for work, maybe I should ! I am impressed by your involvement ~ Keep it up ~ Bonne continuation
phil Local Government meetings, although they are public events, are not very well attended. They are considered notoriously boring. Considering, these are the agencies that spend your tax dollars & decide the direction of your municipality... It takes a while to figure out how it all works & what the individual players are up to. & like I've said before, the politicians involved don't always encourage public involvement. Mainly because, public involvement requires more work on their part. It sometimes puts roadblocks in the way of whatever their particular vision is.
For instance trying to explain complex economic concepts to the average citizen off the street can be tedious & trying. Esp. when that citizen is not quite sure they agree with what you're up to. Persistence can be quite annoying to politicians. But, as I see it, that is the only to get into the game.
Comparing politics to a game of chess is the correct analogy, IMO.
Have fun with it. Getting involved is the reward.
Prash I meant to link to the pulse pen site in the articlehere. I love mine. It's excellent for recording long meetings & later playing back the part of the dialogue you want to listen to again, with out slogging over the whole thing.
I know you are a compassionate person that cares a lot about human rights & human dignity, so a compliment from you means a lot. :)
Is that short notification to the public done on purpose?
qf I believe the 5 day notice requirement is for convenience & to make allowance for emergency or special meetings.
Regular scheduled meetings like monthly city council meetings, for example, the first monday of every mth. etc...the 1 page agenda that the public receives for those meetings is posted 5 days prior to the meeting. The city started sending the Newspaper the whole packet(usually 40 to 70 pages)that each of the the city councilors receive prior to the meeting, after I realized that the public including myself, was not always being fully informed about what was being decided & voted on by the council. Ideally, that information would be on a PDF file that anyone can access on the Cities website, anyway. But, if the public doesn't demand it, they won't get it.
Since The purpose of giving public notice of government public meetings is one of those checks & balances established to protect & inform the public & insure government transparency, I can't say it is deliberate to give short notice, only that it so often seems to work out in the favor of the officials to not have an informed public. I say this not to imply that the council or city management is corrupt, but I do realize that their job is often easier without the public nosing around & asking questions.
It's always frustrating to me that the opportunity for public input and involvement occurs during normal working hours when most people are not free to attend. Unless you are retired, work shifts or are payed to attend, important voices go unheard.
Does your newspaper have a website? That might be a way of publishing notification of the meetings to be available the same day the newspaper receives it -- at least for readers who are aware of the website.
rev Most meetings in my community are in the evening. One problem in this rural community pertaining to city government anyway is that a lot of people that work in town & have a vested interest about what goes on live outside the city limits, meaning they don't really have a vote when it comes down to it.
infidel It does. Not at all my department. Frankly, it's not a very good one. I believe My editor thinks of it more as an after thought. I don't even know who runs it. But, it's lackluster at best.
Obviously your bustin ass and bringing to light some important issue's(and sometime's folk's around you might not like your hard work... if you know what I mean) But yeah... that's a dirty rotten shame that public or paper subscriber's may not know of a damn meeting/forum or whatever until after it happened...who's in charge of that department I would wonder?
Put your foot in their asses girl! Maybe that will motivate result's.
Later Ms.Rita.....
Another thing..."Leland Consulting Group"... I cant pinpoint it... but that name ring's a bell for some reason, and usually when my bell's ring... it's in question....
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