I am embarrassed to admit that I attended my first city council meeting tonight. The main issue on the agenda impacts Gregg, me, and our neighbors directly, and in a big way. That popular saying, all politics are local. made all kinds of sense to me. The meeting had it all, at close to 4 hours long. We had big business, in the form of a real estate developer, a private citizen trying to sell her 26 acre golf course to the developer. We had environmentalists who want to retain the open space, union folks in favor of construction jobs, citizens in favor of some rare new housing. The citizens who spoke were a very colorful bunch. I especially liked the folks on the tree hugger side. There will be many very old trees come down to make room for 99 homes. I am looking at several years of very loud, dusty, disruptive construction just the other side of my fence. I think I might lose my mind. I got a good look at my five member city council, which included the mayor. The mayor seemed OK. He is included in the five member council. Several of the speakers during the open comments section pointed out that 4 of the 5 members had taken significant campaign contributions from the developer. The citizens felt that the council members should recuse themselves from the issue. I totally agree. There is one young woman who has gone rogue. I love her. She took no developer money, and is often the outlier in the four to five votes. I voted for these people but I have no confidence in this particular political body. Thank goodness that I felt better about Obamas speech. I believe that I will be attending more city council meetings in an effort to improve my city, since it looks like we are sticking around for now.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 08:40:45 +0000
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