What Happened

  Published in slightly edited form in the Foothills Sun-Gazette Feb. 6, 2013.

    "What happened at the special Lindsay City Council meeting Wednesday?" my attorney friend Richard called to ask the morning after.

     "Nothing you wouldn't expect," I said, still discouraged.

     It had been a long meeting.  I'd lost an hour and a half of work to be there at the beginning, when the public comment period occurs, in order to request that they table the agenda item regarding public participation, saving it for a regularly scheduled meeting.  During my three minutes I'd gotten into a little, friendly discussion with the new mayor, who assured me it was just going to be a discussion and who made it clear the discussion was going to occur.  I'd sat through the long-but-interesting ethics training Julia Lew conducted, only to miss most of Rich Wilkinson's explanation why he removed the language from the agenda packet last year that I've requested they restore because I had to run home and call the county courthouse number to see if I had to appear for jury duty the next day so I could let my employer know if I'd be at work the next morning or not.  It felt like a Monday.

     When I popped back into the council chambers, Rich was just finishing his explaation why he'd acted without Council authority.  Apparently he'd been in discussion with former Mayor Ed (whom he calls "Dad") Murray, and assumed that what Ed wanted was reflective of the entire council.  Considering that they almost always voted in unanimity, that probably wasn't a totally unfair assumption.  But still:  the Council was neither asked nor informed.

     Together with Rich and Julia, the Council then discussed how to proceed with deciding what kind of rules they want to establish for public participation in the council meetings and other aspects of city government.  They decided to form a committee made up of two council members and two staff.  Councilman Mecum said he'd hate to undergo such an effort without having public input, so they added one more slot for a member of the public.  "How are we going to find someone?" they wondered together, so they assigned that job to the city manager.

     Look at what's happened.  They've had a discussion between the council members and the staff about a matter of concern to the general public at a meeting few members of the public even knew was occurring, starting at 4:30 pm, a time of day when most people were still at work.  They've made several decisions:  how they're going to proceed (have a committee look at the questions and report back to the Council,) who will be on the committee (Councilwoman Kimball volunteered, followed by Councilman Mecum, with Rich Wilkinson claiming the staff slots for himself and his right-hand woman, Maria Knutson,) plus some member of the public with unspecified qualifications, then given Rich the power to decide who that will be.  They even decided to announce this decision at the next regular council meeting Feb. 12.

     As I let the meaning of it all sink in, I was filled with this horrible phrase:  we're their niggers.  Like white plantation slave owners in the South, they're proud to be in charge of this large estate we call a city, with 11,000 poor (but "important") citizens, and they boast how well they take care of us.  But the minute we ask a question, we become "uppity" and if we persist, we're labled "disruptive."  These people will never let us into "their" business.  They'll go to war before they'll welcome our presence as equal partners in this city's government.
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Trudy Wischemann is a neophyte communitiy activist who's getting her nose rubbed in it.  You can send her your sympathetic stories or good advice % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247.