Several of my colleagues who also faced re-election in April are supporting a proposal to reduce the number of council meetings to two a month.Funny, they didn't bother to campaign on this issue. They didn't bother to tell voters: re-elect me and I will vote to cut the number of times I have to report to work for you.
The argument that it will save $3500 a month is ridiculous. If that is so, then reduce the Mayor and Council's office budgets to pay for the public meetings. Have each council person chip in $375 to hold the meeting.
The argument that it will allow council people to hold community meetings on Tuesday with their constituents is also nonsense. Hold your community meetings 6 other days in the week if you aren't having enough meeting with your constituents. A public council meeting is the only time the public can watch and participate as we openly deliberate on issues. But maybe that is why my colleagues want to limit those opportunities -- less public discussion, less pesky constituents seeing what is being done.
Okay. So you want to cut the number of times you need to show up for city council meetings to twice a month? Then I urge you to support my charter amendment which would cut our salary 50%. (That's because our salaries were set by charter in 1988 when council met 4 times a month. In 2004, the council cut out a meeting and now some want to cut out yet another meeting.)
Put it on the ballot in November and let the people tell us what they really think of a council that doesn't want to do the job they were elected to do.
