The Auburn City Council may vote Thursday on changing several past practices that taxpayers and more importantly, voters, should pay close attention to. The mayor and city councilors should not approve what is being proposed on the whole, without amendments.
Before them is a proposal to officially go to a schedule that includes work sessions, where every other week they will, in public, vote on items and during the other weeks have non voting sessions dedicated to working on specific issues. This should be approved.
If there is a fifth Thursday of the month, they will no longer meet. The work sessions will not be televised and will be moved out of City Council Chambers, unless there is an overflow crowd, to the small third floor Conference Room at City Hall, based on a decision made by new City Manager Mark Palesh, according to a member of city council. These later changes must not occur.
One of the reasons for moving the sessions out of the reach of the camera lens is to avoid grandstanding by the mayor and councilors, those who are running for office and to allow council the freedom to examine issues without being under the lens of the camera that never blinks.
Recent meetings, since the new City Manager came aboard, have been, for the most part, focused and on point - most not lasting more than an hour or so; unlike past meetings that would go two or more hours. This is a sure sign that self restraint, if acted on, can keep the meetings on track. The same can also be achieved by making sure that those who speak during “Public Be Heard,” supportive of City policies or not, are kept to the allowed three minute time limit.
For those who think that some issues need to be hashed over without the camera on, the proposed 7.1-percent water rate increase, announced last week by the city manager, proves that council should hear bad news with the camera on. The announcement of a possible rate increase was made at a non-televised work session (as was the first reading of this meeting change legislation - that if available on the City's Web site, couldn't easily be found). Wouldn't taxpayers have been better off hearing, unedited, what exactly city staff was proposing on water rates than in differing truncated news stories the next day?
Just as importantly, there are likely to be major changes wrought by this year's upcoming budget proposal. It may involve personnel and program cuts, tax increases or a combination of both. Those weekly discussions should be accessible to the public in their living rooms, as they have for the past several years.
City Council needs to assert its authority, if need be by amendment, to keep the meetings in City Council Chambers and televised. Voters should remember on Election Day anyone who allows the curbing of public access and the current flow of information to taxpayers and vote against them.
Cosentino is a former mayor of the city of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com
If there is a fifth Thursday of the month, they will no longer meet. The work sessions will not be televised and will be moved out of City Council Chambers, unless there is an overflow crowd, to the small third floor Conference Room at City Hall, based on a decision made by new City Manager Mark Palesh, according to a member of city council. These later changes must not occur.
One of the reasons for moving the sessions out of the reach of the camera lens is to avoid grandstanding by the mayor and councilors, those who are running for office and to allow council the freedom to examine issues without being under the lens of the camera that never blinks.
Recent meetings, since the new City Manager came aboard, have been, for the most part, focused and on point - most not lasting more than an hour or so; unlike past meetings that would go two or more hours. This is a sure sign that self restraint, if acted on, can keep the meetings on track. The same can also be achieved by making sure that those who speak during “Public Be Heard,” supportive of City policies or not, are kept to the allowed three minute time limit.
For those who think that some issues need to be hashed over without the camera on, the proposed 7.1-percent water rate increase, announced last week by the city manager, proves that council should hear bad news with the camera on. The announcement of a possible rate increase was made at a non-televised work session (as was the first reading of this meeting change legislation - that if available on the City's Web site, couldn't easily be found). Wouldn't taxpayers have been better off hearing, unedited, what exactly city staff was proposing on water rates than in differing truncated news stories the next day?
Just as importantly, there are likely to be major changes wrought by this year's upcoming budget proposal. It may involve personnel and program cuts, tax increases or a combination of both. Those weekly discussions should be accessible to the public in their living rooms, as they have for the past several years.
City Council needs to assert its authority, if need be by amendment, to keep the meetings in City Council Chambers and televised. Voters should remember on Election Day anyone who allows the curbing of public access and the current flow of information to taxpayers and vote against them.
Cosentino is a former mayor of the city of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com
