Month: August 2019

Interview #145: Jefferson City, MO Mayor Carrie Tergin (with podcast)

This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:

Carrie Tergin, the #SelfieWithTheMayor extraordinaire, returns to review the 2019 top 10 city council selfies list. Later, she also reflects upon the council meeting that took place hours before two natural disasters struck Jefferson City.

—

Q: August 15 was International #CityHallSelfie Day, sponsored by our good friends at ELGL.org. Where would you like to start?

A: I’m going to start by saying there are some really great city hall selfies. Number six is going to be my number three. What I like about this is they were able to Photoshop their city hall in the backdrop of the selfie. You know what? If you can put city hall there, you can put city hall anywhere. That’s one of my top three.

Number five, he’s going to get an honorable mention because he’s really rocking an awesome hat. I gotta give him credit for his selfie with the hat because we all need our sun protection and everybody, wear your sunscreen. He gets an honorable mention for taking care of himself because as mayors, we don’t always do that!

Number three on your list is my number two: Port Adelaide Enfield, Australia. I thought, how cool! It’s international and I also liked it because it highlights the civic groups. It highlights this youth team and the next generation of leaders.

Your number one is my number one. Of course it’s the ’80s! The electric guitar–what is that movie with the “maniac–“?

Q: Flashdance!

A: Flashdance! The “maniac” shirt, I’d wear it to a council meeting if I had it. Then you get down to the Darth Vader and Princess Leia–it’s more like “Prince Leia.” It’s really well done. These two city hall selfies are way out in front.

Q: For the folks who have listened to this program now for three straight years and still have sat out for #CityHallSelfie Day, what can you say to persuade them that taking pictures at city hall is more than a millennial craze?

A: It’s an everyday craze for sure. The more you get into it, the more fun it is. I can be walking down the sidewalk and people will approach and say, “oh, you’re the mayor! Can we please take a selfie?” I love that because it means that people are recognizing their mayor and they want to be part of the story.

Carrie_Tergin_MUG_t755_h1f43f7b56c24e46f1697509bc706c7070b84ccda
Jefferson City, MO Mayor Carrie Tergin

Q: On May 22, you had an emergency council meeting in which you were hearing a lot about potential flooding in Jefferson City. Was the possibility of a tornado even on your radar?

A: No. Absolutely not. No way. Almost our only concern was this flood. Listening to [the meeting], you hear it and you want to say, “guys, here’s what’s getting ready to happen. Oh, my gosh, it’s coming!” You want to go out there with a warning and say, this tornado is coming in a matter of hours. It’s kind of wild to listen to that and know that that was hours before the tornado and here we were very focused on the flood.

Q: Ever since the flooding and tornado, almost every meeting for the past three months has had some mention of the disaster. Is the damage and the rescue and the recovery something that people need to talk about or is it something that people want to talk about?

A: It’s something that we’re living everyday. It’s not just a part of our conversation. It’s a part of our lives and it will be for years to come. #JCStrong is real. It’s a real thing. Communities have it. Not every community’s tested to the point where they have to know that. We are completely changed.

Follow Mayor Carrie Tergin on Twitter: @CarrieTergin

Interview #144: Belmont, CA Vice Mayor Warren Lieberman (with podcast)

This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:

Warren Lieberman has been a Belmont council member for 13 years, and there have been a few notable changes. He discusses the mock council exercise he helped institute for second graders and what policies they pretended to pass.

—

Q: On October 17 of last year, your council welcomed second graders into city hall for a mock council meeting. Tell me why Belmont started bringing the niños into the council chamber.

A: For a long time, Belmont’s second graders have come to visit city hall. Typically they would see the council chambers and they would be told about the council meeting and they would meet the mayor. And I thought, you know what? That doesn’t really give the second graders a good picture or understanding of what happens. So I suggested to make it more interesting, why don’t we actually stage a mock council meeting? We assigned some of the second graders to be council members, some to be city staff, some to be members of the public, and we created a 15-20 minute exercise.

Q: What concept did these kids have the hardest time grasping? Was it amending a motion on the floor before voting on the underlying motion? Or sitting still?

A: While we can’t mimic everything that happens in a council meeting, I think for sure the second graders who were members of the public, they certainly had fun giving the council a piece of their mind.

Q: You’re dividing up these roles and obviously there can only be one mayor. In a class of 25 second graders, how do you pick the best candidate?

A: We put the names in a hat and just picked one out. I would say that for second graders, public speaking does not always come naturally. So sometimes, even after you selected the mayor, you need to help encourage them.

Q: What kinds of laws did those second graders pass? And is this why Belmont’s official city animal is Kayden’s family’s puppy?

A: [laughs] I’m not sure that there’s a connection! The focus of the meetings are on some type of park or recreation item. I believe one year, one of the mayors tried to bring in a zoning ordinance. I’m not quite sure how well that one worked.

636802118170330000.jpeg
Belmont, CA Vice Mayor Warren Lieberman

Q: In 2018, your council had to fill a vacancy. How detailed were the procedures for doing so and how much could you improvise?

A: The council basically by law has two ways to approach things. You can either appoint somebody and there are certain time limits. Or you can go to an election.

Q: You all had this batch of resumes and you voted on your top candidates. All of them happened to be commissioners. Would it have made sense to say on the application that there would be a preference for commissioners to get that seat, such that everyone else who didn’t have that experience wouldn’t have wasted their time applying?

A: I wouldn’t see it that way. Certainly for myself, I try hard to look at the type of experience that folks have had. Some might be commissioners. Some might be school board members. Some may be active in the Rotary Club. If you had that kind of qualifier, it would discourage people from applying. From my perspective, I would always be considering them.

International #CityHallSelfie Day Top 10 List

It is time once again to honor the most creative, most energetic, and most authentic city council self-portraits of International #CityHallSelfie Day. See our list of the top 10 city council selfies here!

Interview #143: Golden, CO Mayor Pro Tem Casey Brown (with podcast)

This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:

Casey Brown was a proponent of letting 16 and 17-year-olds vote in Golden’s municipal elections. He discusses the merits of that council proposal, as well as a resident-initiated campaign to place a moratorium on housing construction in the name of “neighborhood character.”

—

Q: I was shocked to see your council take things a little too far for my taste last year when you sent a measure to the ballot to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal elections. Who came up with this idea? Is this something you got from these violent video games that I hear are destroying our country?

A: [laughs] No, this is actually an idea that has popped up in other cities around the country. It’s something that’s been adopted in a number of other countries as well. It was a neat idea I thought. There was a lot of studies that showed when you lowered the voting age, those individuals became engaged voters for the rest of their lives.

Q: I’ve watched quite a few of your council meetings and I daresay the average age of people who come before you to speak is probably in the forties. Do you think that people are suspicious of young people playing a role in government because they’re not hearing young people play a role in government?

A: I do. It was challenging to overcome some of those preconceived ideas people had about whether 16-year-olds were ready for it. There was even some 16-year-olds who questioned whether they were really ready for it!

Q: There is one other campaign that played out publicly in your council meetings beginning early this year. Can you explain how Golden limits new housing construction?

A: This is often what we call in Golden the one percent growth limit–it’s technically a 0.9 percent growth limit. This is an idea that Golden adopted in 1996, but it’s a way of restraining the growth in residential developments.

Brown.jpg
Golden, CO Mayor Pro Tem Casey Brown

Q: In January, you had several residents saying that development was out of control and asking for a moratorium on housing construction until you could revise your city codes. Where was this sentiment coming from?

A: There’s been such a growth in population across all communities along the Front Range. The infill development especially here in Golden has been happening at a bulk and size and scale that was really out of scope with the existing character of the neighborhoods. There was a real frustration and angst about what they were seeing in their neighborhoods–bigger, denser, of a different architectural style, and not really compatible with their existing neighborhood character.

Q: When you heard the word “moratorium,” what do you envision they were asking for?

A: I think what they were asking for is just to put a stop to all development. Just make it stop. I think that’s a reasonable desire, but it’s not a desire that we could really fulfill. It’s not that we want to make everything be old timey, historic Golden. But at the same time, there was clearly some new development that really was not compatible.

Q: It struck me that many of the people–if not 99 percent of them–who spoke, were older than 30. Going back to the 16 and 17-year-olds who you wanted to be able to vote, do you feel that their interests were represented in the moratorium debate?

A: That’s a really interesting thought. When we think about our younger residents, we tend to think of them being concerned about other issues outside of planning and zoning. We tend to think, are we creating the right recreational amenities? Are we creating transportation and transit options for them? But it’s an interesting point because I think they have a real stake in what gets decided as well in the planning code.

Follow Mayor Pro Tem Casey Brown on Twitter: @BrownforGolden

Interview #142: Denver, CO Former Councilman Rafael Espinoza (with podcast)

This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:

Rafael Espinoza was the District 1 councilman in Denver for the past four years before stepping down this summer. From meeting attendance to the non-televised public comment sessions, he took issue with some of his council’s operating procedures. Plus, he explains on the podcast how he rapidly made up his mind during a divisive vote on affordable housing.

—

Q: Unlike most cities out there, your council does not hold public comment during the meetings. Why not? And as a follow-up: how dare you?

A: That was an interesting debate. I very much supported having public comment be televised. Basically we were advised by the city attorney to not do that because once you open public comment, you can’t shut it down. You cannot dictate or control what the individual speaks to. In order to maintain the ability for individuals to speak, but maybe not broadcast things that are not really good to broadcast, the decision was to hold that prior to the actual televised meeting.

Q: So if I’m hearing you correctly, there was a fear that mild-mannered Denverites would be more vulgar, crude, and insulting than all of the other cities that do televise their public comment?

A: There are some usual attendees that take every opportunity they can in public comment to speak. There was concern expressed by members of council that those individuals would take that opportunity to expound upon whatever theories they had.

Q: I noticed that the pre-meeting comment, although not televised, was on your personal Facebook page. Is anyone live streaming the half-hour public comment session now that you are no longer on council?

A: No. I took exception to the fact that we were fearful of having public comment. I took it upon myself to live stream it directly from the dais. But I didn’t bother asking permission. I didn’t think it was a big deal because anybody in the audience could do the same thing. But it did come out years later at a retreat–“hey, you’re doing that and you never bothered asking us.” I was like, “does anyone take issue with it?” And there were enough members of council that did that I ceased making that broadcast.

Editorial-Rafael-Espinoza-2-19
Denver, CO former Councilman Rafael Espinoza

Q: Denver has council meetings. It has committee meetings. But it also has a unique third type of meeting called the “mayor-council” meeting. Each week, the council members sit around the table, and your mayor–who is not a part of council–comes in to chair a legislative update between the branches of government. These meetings are typically under a half hour, sometimes under ten minutes. If this is the time for the legislature and the chief executive to be in the same room at the same time, I would expect a little more give and take. What was your impression?

A: It is the lone chance where council is sitting at the table with the mayor in a public forum. Early on I did take advantage of that opportunity to try and raise certain concerns. That wasn’t very well received. It’s more of a perfunctory thing.

Q: I noticed that it was very rare for all council members to show up to the mayor-council meetings. What was your philosophy on showing up? Speaking now as John Q. Voter, should it matter to Denverites whether council members are having face time with the mayor?

A: I think it would be important to have face time with the mayor. I was a regular attendee until I wasn’t. There was a lot of things that were on the consent agenda that I took issue with and I wished we were questioning. I’m notorious on council for wanting to question things. For me personally, it made my skin crawl at times to be sitting in there being deferential when there were things there that I thought should be called out and questioned.

Follow former Councilman Rafael Espinoza on Twitter: @CD1Rafael