Agenda for Thursday 5/31/07
I apologize for removing comments from the blog for the last week. I am sure that a lot of people looked forward to seeing some of the drama of last week played out on the blog. Frankly, I did not want to be in a position of moderating a heated discussion back and forth, also the action of council spoke clearly enough. I look forward to reading the Sentinel tomorrow. I am not sure which direction this blog will take with the new council in place. I remain interested in following the city's activities, but I don't know how much time I can put into this effort. My hope is that the city business will be a lot less interesting in the future with clearer agendas and less controversy.
This is a valuable form of communication about city business. The paper is excellent for providing an independent record of events. Anybody that has been to a difficult meeting and then read the paper can understand the difficulties of condensing a long meeting into an article. I remain in constant awe of the reporter's ability to pick the quote out of a ten minute monologue that can sum up the whole thing. A format like this will be biased by the blogger. That is the nature of a blog, a personal web log done in a very public way. It's one opinion; one view of the situation. Read it if you like.
My point is that there are many ways to follow the business of the city: attending meetings, reading the minutes, listening to the tapes, reading the paper, reading a blog, and talking to people who attended. Each way gives a different perspective. For those that want another perspective, a blog like this is useful.
I encourage the new council to pick up the idea from the last administration of doing a website for the city. I hope that those that volunteered previously will consider doing so again and doing so in an open and cooperative way. One of the simpler and more valuable services of this blog has been to post the agenda online so that people did not need to go to city hall to see what was coming up before the council. All pertinent city information should be posted including city services, public notices, ordinances, and zoning.
Time will tell how this blog adapts to the new situation. Post a comment if you have any suggestions.
Best of luck to the new council members and thanks to the two senior members for hanging in there.
RobC.
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The agenda for the regular meeting of city council on May 31, 2007 has been posted. This is the first regular meeting of the new council with two continuing members and three new members.
First thing up is citizen comments. Citizen comments have usually been at the end of the meeting and is now at the front. This makes sense. Citizens that want to make a statement to council can do it at the beginning and then leave. They do not need to wait three hours to do it at the end. Citizens can still comment on any agenda matter when it comes up.
As predicted, there will be nine sets of minutes to review and possibly adopt. This brings the city more or less up to date on minutes, though there might be some two year old problems. This takes care of the last year or so. Let's hope that the official record of the council actions will be treated with more respect in the future.
Old business consists of financial reports and the Humble sewer deal situation. This might be the fifth time that this has come before council. If the deal is well documented and presented to council in their packets, they should be able to make a call on the matter and allow the requestors to move ahead.
New business includes Mayor Pro Tem designation, bank signature approvals, rules and procedures for meetings, and the administrator ordinance (#01-02). Then three items related to grants follow. Then a discussion about the format for minutes.
Next are two agenda items related to Parks & Rec. Then six agenda items related to P&Z, BoA and the Permit Review Committee.
The last four items are a discussion of using the Sheriff instead of the police, the EMS ambulance repair, appointing Laura Granado as the City Secretary (an officer position with specific responsibilities), and finally a presentation from the EMS department.
It is a full agenda. I look forward to seeing the new council in action.
This is a valuable form of communication about city business. The paper is excellent for providing an independent record of events. Anybody that has been to a difficult meeting and then read the paper can understand the difficulties of condensing a long meeting into an article. I remain in constant awe of the reporter's ability to pick the quote out of a ten minute monologue that can sum up the whole thing. A format like this will be biased by the blogger. That is the nature of a blog, a personal web log done in a very public way. It's one opinion; one view of the situation. Read it if you like.
My point is that there are many ways to follow the business of the city: attending meetings, reading the minutes, listening to the tapes, reading the paper, reading a blog, and talking to people who attended. Each way gives a different perspective. For those that want another perspective, a blog like this is useful.
I encourage the new council to pick up the idea from the last administration of doing a website for the city. I hope that those that volunteered previously will consider doing so again and doing so in an open and cooperative way. One of the simpler and more valuable services of this blog has been to post the agenda online so that people did not need to go to city hall to see what was coming up before the council. All pertinent city information should be posted including city services, public notices, ordinances, and zoning.
Time will tell how this blog adapts to the new situation. Post a comment if you have any suggestions.
Best of luck to the new council members and thanks to the two senior members for hanging in there.
RobC.
-----
The agenda for the regular meeting of city council on May 31, 2007 has been posted. This is the first regular meeting of the new council with two continuing members and three new members.
First thing up is citizen comments. Citizen comments have usually been at the end of the meeting and is now at the front. This makes sense. Citizens that want to make a statement to council can do it at the beginning and then leave. They do not need to wait three hours to do it at the end. Citizens can still comment on any agenda matter when it comes up.
As predicted, there will be nine sets of minutes to review and possibly adopt. This brings the city more or less up to date on minutes, though there might be some two year old problems. This takes care of the last year or so. Let's hope that the official record of the council actions will be treated with more respect in the future.
Old business consists of financial reports and the Humble sewer deal situation. This might be the fifth time that this has come before council. If the deal is well documented and presented to council in their packets, they should be able to make a call on the matter and allow the requestors to move ahead.
New business includes Mayor Pro Tem designation, bank signature approvals, rules and procedures for meetings, and the administrator ordinance (#01-02). Then three items related to grants follow. Then a discussion about the format for minutes.
Next are two agenda items related to Parks & Rec. Then six agenda items related to P&Z, BoA and the Permit Review Committee.
The last four items are a discussion of using the Sheriff instead of the police, the EMS ambulance repair, appointing Laura Granado as the City Secretary (an officer position with specific responsibilities), and finally a presentation from the EMS department.
It is a full agenda. I look forward to seeing the new council in action.
posted by RobC at 12:56 PM
4 Comments:
I truely hope you don't give up on this blog. I hope it becomes what it really should have been/should be, a DISCUSSION. For example, the ambulance and its repairs. I believe that the people of Marfa, many that cannot be at the meeting, have some valuable views and ideas that could possibly add to councils depth of understanding of what their constituants want, that might not be considered at a meeting. It would be a way for the city to get facts to the public. A type of 'pre-discussion'. It could shorten the discussion and consideration portion of the meetings, if council could say that they had read of a particular point or view in the blog, and had taken it into consideration in forming their opinion of action to be taken.
I agree. I think that is one of the more valuable parts of this blog. I have thought about setting up a discussion forum that would allow anybody to start a thread. As you know, those things can get pretty wild if not moderated with a firm hand. One option would be to allow posts only by registered users.
Another idea is to allow more people to be blog contributors that could post heir own original blogs. I am open to any ideas if people want to continue this online effort to improve citizen-municipality communications.
Flo is still here. Somebody might want to tell him to look at the classifieds on the TML website.
how did thursday nite's council meeting go? i usually attend but was unable to at the last minute. was there a tremendous difference? how long did it last, it was a long agenda. thanks.
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