For reference purposes please see my post of 3/14/21 (last Sunday)
Below is my latest email to the Mayor, the city manager and the governing body.
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Nolan,
I see that Business From The Floor is thankfully again on the agenda for 3/22/21 but still at the end of the meeting. This is outrageous.
If you reread your email to me from last week the double talk on your part is so obvious that a two year old could spot it.
Again, folks were permitted to come to the council chambers to comment on other items but Business From the Floor was held back because "We did not want a large number of people gathered in the Council Chambers when there were other (safer) methods for members of the public to express their concerns".
Two things need to happen. First Business From the Floor needs to be moved up on the agenda to its former position. Again, the mayor's comments that staff has priority over the public is total garbage. Additionally, any member of the council that agrees with that is not considering who they were elected to represent.
The other thing that needs to happen is that the council needs to meet back in chambers and cut out this virtual nonsense. Some of the council members have been doing this. Others are hiding behind their computers. There are many ways to make this happen and maintain social distancing. One of those is to eliminate the seating of you as city manager and the city attorney from the dais. No other city does this. You and he are staff. You belong in the staff section of the gallery and if your input is needed you can come to the podium. Or, another possibility is a separate table in the well. This would also eliminate the off the record whispering that you and he do during council meetings. The governing body itself can be split with half on the dais and half at tables in the well.
Let's get both of the above items back in force for the April 12th council meeting.
Ray
