Twice in less than two weeks, I have gone to committee meetings where the people who were there to listen to or participate in the meeting could barely fit in the room. And no, I am not talking about the Urban Design Commission that is typically overflowing from room LL-110 in the Municipal Building.
The first meeting was the Equal Opportunities Commission meeting on paid sick leave. They tried to cram themselves into room LL-130 in the Municipal Building. Ironically, the much larger room 260 was vacant because the Community Development Commission did not have quorum. Meanwhile about 30 people and a tv camera were trying to make themselves comfortable in a very hot room. Alder King and myself actually stood in the hallway.
The second meeting (no agenda on line?) was the Transit and Parking Commission where they held the public hearing on bus route changes. Not only was this room so crowded that I sat in the hallway peeking around the corner to hear better, but the public hearing was a complete farce. About 50 people we jammed into the Parks Conference room in Room 120 of the Municipal building. And again, room 260 was empty because the Board of Estimates had completed their meeting. Meanwhile, people in wheelchairs had a difficult time maneuvering around a way too crowded room.
And to make matters worse, those people who showed up to a public hearing to advocate for the bus service that they relied on were met with comments from staff that indicated that they would need to walk farther (even tho this was a hardship for some elderly and people with disabilities) or being told to they would need to wait for a half hour or hour for the next bus because it would shave a minute off of a route. And the final insult was when the commission said they had to vote on the changes that night and that the staff couldn’t make on the spot changes to routes. What was the point of having the sham of a public meeting? Oh, and what was the point of raising the fares when we continue to have to make cuts as well?
Meanwhile, I continue to hear major complaints about how the council didn’t get to the paid sick leave hearing until 10:00 that night. Since then, people have suggested the following things to help with public testimony and public viewing of the meetings that could be added to my own ideas.
1. Put a closed circuit TV in the hallway so people can stand in the hallway and talk and still monitor the meeting. That way they won’t disturb those trying to pay attention to the meeting.
2. Limit the length of time that an alder can ask a question (30 seconds) and the time that the person can answer the question (1 minute).
3. Put a timer at the podium so that the speaker knows when their time is near the end.
4. Fix the microphone (Many of you probably know you need to occasionally tap the microphone to make sure it is working.)
We have so much to do to make the public input into our city decision making better. To some extent, the alders on these committees are responsible for pointing these trainwrecks out and trying to help straighten them out. To some extent, we need to have better meeting rooms, better meeting procedures, better training of citizen committee members and more resources available to our citizen committees.
