I woke up with popcorn hulls stuck between my teeth one morning this week, leftovers from my bedtime snack the night before. I hadn’t gotten up to brush or floss, I just crashed and left them there for tomorrow.
“What a perfect metaphor for the City of Lindsay,” I thought to myself. Watching their posturing, hearing their words, reading their statements leaves the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as the hulls leave on my gums.
In a recent article in this paper, Mayor Padilla was quoted as saying “We hope to reach out to those who are discontent or have been discontent with the city before. We hope to bring those people in and maybe draw some attention to the fact that we are working really hard to heal those relationships.” (Jan. 7, 2015.) I don’t know if she was thinking of me, but last week’s double city council meetings did little to reduce my ongoing discontent.
Monday, Jan. 26th, they held a special meeting that started at 4 p.m. in a conference room, not the regular council chambers. The agenda was 1) the presentation of a succession plan for the pending retirement of finance director Tamara Laken and the return to one hat for Rich Wilkinson as Director of Public Safety; 2) long range financial planning and mid-year budget update; 3) 2015/2016 goals and objectives of the city council; 4) discussion of submitting an RFP for an update of the city’s general plan; and last, but not least, 5) the approval of a city representative on the “One-Voice” trip to Washington, D.C. by TCAG. There were no supporting materials on the website, and the Councilmembers received none before the meeting. As a member of the public, if you read only the agenda, you would not have known the scope or content of this meeting.
The agenda for the following day’s regularly scheduled council meeting was paltry by comparison. It contained a normal consent calendar (including approval of a cost overrun on a street project, which shouldn’t be normal but is;) the closing of a public hearing on a conditional use permit that wasn’t ready to go; a public hearing on a variance of a lot line set-back on one property, and council reports. In terms of the public’s interest, the material discussed at Monday’s special meeting was far greater than Tuesday’s, which easily could have been handled by a planning commission if we had one. Farmersville has one. (Farmersville also paid $16K to find a professional city manager. It seems like we could do as well.)
I can hear them now, saying “We’ve always had these special meetings starting at 4 pm in January - that’s the only way we can get this important work done.” What they mean is that this work is too important to risk having public scrutiny, much less public input. One kudo goes to the Council for requiring the staff to repeat this important information at a regularly scheduled meeting. Until we have rules that allow for real public participation, however, the chance that the public will attend is small.
Three years ago this month, current city manager Rich Wilkinson removed language from the agenda packet describing the rules for public participation in these meetings. He did so at the request of then-Mayor Murray, without Council discussion or approval. Two years ago this month I asked Mayor Padilla to restore this language and begin to take other steps to encourage our real participation in these meetings. One year ago this month I repeated that request. We are still waiting, reasonably discontent.
In order for relationships to heal, changes must be made. As long as we have staff in charge who do not want public input, and a council willing to comply with their behavior, this city will continue to fester. It’s time to do some serious flossing.
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Trudy Wischemann is a negligent tooth-brusher who writes. You can send her your clean-up stories c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
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