How to watch a city commission meeting

How to watch a city commission meeting

November 2009 Update: The last couple of years have seen some ugly city commission meetings, and city hall observers are hoping that the three newly elected commissioners can change the tone. The guidelines below remain useful as the bodies change.

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Individual commissioners (and, to a degree, the mayor*) display characteristics which bear watching:

1. Do they favor decisions which seek to control or decisions which seek to liberate -- people, policies, procedures, plans?

2. Do they permit their fondness or dislike toward a person or a city department or a concept to dominate their decision-making?

3 Do they regularly use nit-picnicking as a technique to win a point, to stall deliberations, to wear down their opposition, simply to posture for the public?

Pay attention to when they reveal those characteristics, most often unintentionally. Is there a pattern to the types of issues which most interest them? Bore them? Irritate them? Delight them?

Try to predict how the vote will go on a given issue. If you can predict an individual's vote almost every time, that official is operating from feelings, not thought. (There have been too many commissioners like that in the past, but that problem hasn't been as severe with the 42nd commission.)**

Sure, it's fun to join VersagiVoice in chiding this or that commissioner for talking too much or protesting too much or bullying or wandering or whining. That adds a personal dimension to the dialogues, and VersagiVoice readers tell us that including the human touch in our commission reports adds interest and understanding. But, focus on the issues as you watch the proceedings, whether those proceedings, at a given moment, take the form of quiet conversation or of lively debate. We're not talking here about whether an individual is, overall, likeable in a social setting. They are all at least likeable enough to have gotten elected.

*As chair of the meeting, a mayor can't initiate a motion and is conventionally restricted from taking an active role during debate. Unlike one of his recent predecessors, Mayor Ellison does not often insert himself into the dialogue or make speeches, although he will tip his hand sometimes by his body language, facial expression, tone of voice.

**VersagiVoice has added a tabulation of no-votes and split-votes. That tabulation, as of April 2008, seems to show that most commissioners, most times, vote on issues. Just when you've decided Commissioner X is a control-freak, he goes libertarian either intellectually or emotionally.

Links to CITCOM meetings