The arguments against the ban by the RS5 will be high theatre, so let’s review some of the cards they will pull against this ban;
• What if there is an emergency I need to attend to? That’s simple, you give the number of the council’s operations manager, Jim David to your family members. If their is an emergency, they can call him and he can notify the councilor affected immediately. The irony is that in the 15 or so years I have been attending and watching council meetings, I have only witnessed a councilor leaving once due to an emergency.
• What if I need to research something. Well that research should have been done before you came to the meeting (just like they used to do in the olden days when they had NO internet and NO cell phones) and if you have legal or logistic questions you can ask the applicant or city director to answer those questions by walking to the microphone during the meeting.
• Having my cell phone during a meeting is part of a modern society. While I can somewhat agree that technology has changed, the meetings really are a ‘public’ hearing of sorts, that means all correspondence during the meetings between councilors and staff, constituents or applicants should be public, and in a legal sense, if you are texting about policy in the meeting, that really should be released to the public.
• We don’t need an ordinance, we can just learn to be more respectful. Funny, I said the same thing about public input, but that didn’t stop the RS5 from putting more restrictions on it. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the citizens of Sioux Falls can’t be trusted to be more respectful with texting and driving how can we trust our elected leaders?
Let’s face it, they will come up with a whole host of different reasons we don’t need the ban, because they want to continue to text the ‘players’ in and out of the room. And that is really what it is about, as I said on FB about this last week;
What a sad world we live in that 9 adult elected leaders in our city can’t put their phones away for a couple of hours to do the people’s work. I grew up with landlines and didn’t get a cell phone until about 15 years ago. What did elected leaders do before cell phones and the internet?
These public meetings are about doing the people’s work, and they shouldn’t be distracted by outside testimony or influence during the meetings. If the important people want to be heard privately, schedule a appointment with them before the regular meeting. I don’t take issue with prior discussion with all the parties involved, but when it comes to the actual meeting, you need to be ready to go.
What this comes down to is a game the RS5 has been playing for awhile to gang up on certain councilors and it’s no different then watching sharks circle their prey. Guess what, you are big kids now, you can put away the video games and cartoon watching for a couple hours a week to do the people’s business. I know the first couple of meetings without your phones you will probably experience cold sweats, uncontrollable hand twitches and suddenly the need to wring your hands with hand sanitizer every 5 minutes, but you will survive.