Leave public input as is

Here we go again, another set of city councilors want to make a bunch of changes to something that is not broken (informational meeting);

“Doing it on the front end of the meeting has never made much sense to me,” Councilor Vernon Brown

Huh? It makes perfect sense. The public should not have to WAIT for the city to do their business. City directors and others doing BUSINESS with the city can wait. Both are either getting paid directly from city taxpayers or benefitting from a city service. It is the one chance citizens can make their grievances heard without being inconvenienced.

Munson used to pull this crap where all of his rich developer friends got to speak first on an issue, the platting fee tax increase comes to mind. How did that turn out? The taxpayer’s got bilked and the developers have yet to put in any significant amount of money.

Citizens need to speak first.

There is one change though I would like to see and hope there is discussion on it. I think if a citizen directly asks questions from the mayor or city council, they should be afforded an answer. If they do not want to be questioned by the mayor or city council during their public testimony, they should have that right also. I just think it is kinda strange the mayor had to wait until the end of the meeting to respond. I also think it is strange that the Council chair just sat there with the gavel in her hand not knowing what to do with it. “Uh, what’s this pretty shiny wooden hammer for?” She could have allowed the constituents to respond to the mayor without it turning into a parking lot rumble.

Is public testimony uncomfortable? Sure. And if that bothers you, you are welcome to resign from your position. I’m sure Darrin Smith can fill you in on how to go about that.