Somewhere out there, a city council meeting is happening. And you're not watching it. But I am. Each week, I bring you the highlights, lowlights, and weirdlights from places you don't live.
What’s this? Another installment of the semi-regular “Best Thing, Worst Thing” podcast series? Why, I do believe it is! For an explanation of the project, check out the page here. If you like storytelling and municipal lore, I think you’ll enjoy what the cat dragged in.
If you’ve got the kids already gathered around the fireplace, head over to the City Council Chronicles podcast and download the latest episode. Or you can play it below.
Episode 2: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Photo source: Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce
Cheyenne is the capital of Wyoming, population 63,000. It is located in the southeast corner of the state just eight miles from the Colorado border. It exists thanks to the builders of the Transcontinental Railroad. Downtown is fairly compact, with the capitol building at the north end and the historic train station at the south. Government buildings are prevalent and some of the historic homes are quite nice. Although it is the largest city in Wyoming, the population has risen slowly and steadily. In this episode, we hear from a business owner, a firearms instructor, two Chamber of Commerce employees, and a former mayoral candidate.
It’s our first trip into West Virginia and we couldn’t have gotten a better guest! Andy Richardson is a councilman on the Charleston city council–and also a professor 160 miles away at WVU (go Mountaineers). Interestingly, he once served on the South Charleston city council, too. We talked about the differences there, his front row seat, and his favorite “Take Me Home, Country Roads” version.
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Q: I am a little outraged at you because Charleston city council does not post the videos of its meetings online. What’s the deal there–are you not wearing pants?
A: [Laughs] No, it’s a very old, historic council chamber. And perhaps that’s something we should look at.
Q: Is there assigned seating?
A: Yes, we each have a specific seat to sit in and that’s determined by the mayor.
Q: The mayor! So, does he play favorites? Put his friends up front, put the troublemakers in the back?
A: No, I wouldn’t say that. He’s pretty fair about where he sits people.
Q: Where do you sit?
A: In a prior term I was on the back row. In the current term, I’m on the front row.
Q: Ooooh. And did you get that front row seat by doing anything special for the mayor?
A: There are those who would say a seat in the back row is a better seat!
Charleston, WV Councilman Andy Richardson
Q: There are 26 people on the Charleston city council. Twenty-six! What, are you starting a football team or something?
A: Well, it’s a very community-driven city council. What it means is, if there are issues of concern in your neighborhood, there’s a strong likelihood that a neighbor is a member of the city council.
Q: Now, something that’s fairly rare about you is that you were a councilman in two different cities. In 1987 you were on the South Charleston city council. Did it feel like when you got on the Charleston city council, that everything was familiar to you? Like muscle memory?
A: The Charleston city council experience is significantly different from the South Charleston city council–partly because of the size of the council. There’s far less paper today than there was back in the 1980s. There was no “website” for the city in that era.
Q: Uh-huh.
A: Charleston actually has written in the charter and ordinances the procedure for conduct of the council. South Charleston used Robert’s Rules of Order.
Q: Do you prefer being one of nine or one of 26?
A: They’re different. I feel blessed to have been elected three different times to two different city councils. [Charleston] is similar in feel to a lot of legislative bodies. [South Charleston] was a nine-member council and the positioning of the seats was like a board of directors meeting or something.
Q: Have you ever gone to meetups for local government officials and tried to find out if anyone else was in the elite platinum multi-city councilman club?
A: [Laughs] I have not! I’m sure they exist, but I’ve never thought of it like that.
Ashly Perez de Tejada is a survey specialist with the National Research Center. But, in a twist, her job is to present the survey research to city councils at their meetings. How fun! We talk about the time she was challenged by a council member and find out which city had the nicest council members.
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Q: What is your relationship to city council meetings?
A: I go to city council meetings to present findings from our citizen surveys.
Q: So if you’re not doing political polling, what kinds of things are you asking?
A: We ask various questions about people’s quality of life and certain things they enjoy or dislike about their community.
Q: Do you ever sit there in the meetings watching other people present and you think, “oh, my god…these guys are tanking! How are we supposed to follow this?”
A: [Laughs] Thankfully we’ve gotten really lucky in that a lot of our presentations are done towards the beginning. But of those we’ve had to see, I would say that we just are empathetic to the situation because I know that city council meetings can be hours and hours long. So everybody else who has to present has to go through the same challenges with respect to keeping their attention, really getting their point across, but getting the heck out of there.
Q: When you’re presenting to the city council, have you ever gotten a question to the effect of, “wait, we paid money for this?”
A: Some people are surprised when we are up there. I won’t tell you the community name, but just about everybody was on board on the city council except for one person. He basically stated that the survey was useless because he was elected and, therefore, just by process of being elected, he knew what the constituency wanted.
Survey researcher Ashly Perez de Tejada
Q: Because you’ve sat through other parts of city council meetings, has there been anything you’ve seen that’s been enjoyable to you?
A: I think it’s just interesting when they have a lot of public comment. Initially, before working this job, I had very little understanding of what city councils actually did. I have to say that surveying is the best way to get at the entire community’s opinion and not just those that go to every single council meeting and have an opinion about every single thing on the agenda.
Q: Who do you think had the nicest city council chamber?
A: I really enjoyed going to Aurora’s [Colorado] city council. They have a really cool communication area–and it’s just for every time they want to create a commercial–and they have a really nice setup. It wasn’t so intimidating because you didn’t have to stand below everybody.
Q: Nice, nice. In what city were the council members the friendliest?
A: I would probably say Cedar Rapids.
Q: Okay, Iowa.
A: I flew out there a few months ago and everybody was very welcoming and they wanted to talk to me after the fact not just about the survey results, but just to find out how things were going and actually asked me about personal stuff.
Q: Okay, there you have it. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, coming in as a dark horse for the friendliest city council members in America!
De’Keither Stamps is a farmer, soldier, motivational speaker, and future White House visitor who also is a Jackson city councilman. We talked about his unusually high level of commitment to city council meetings and what it cost him to become a councilman.
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Q: Something that’s different about Jackson city council meetings is that you bring in a piece of artwork to put behind you every meeting and then you recognize the artist. When did that start?
A: That was Councilman [Tyrone] Hendrix’s idea. And it’s a good idea to recognize the artist.
Q: What’s been your favorite piece?
A: The lady who had the bottle caps and the tiles that she had done some mosaic-type artwork…it was really nice. I like the art that actually means something–I don’t like the decorative kind of stuff.
Q: Yeah, I’m with you. You were a motivational speaker and you still have some videos on YouTube. This video is called “2 Keys to Success”:
That brings up the question: what did it cost you to become a city councilman?
A: Personally, I got pulled over by [Jackson police] and didn’t like the way I was treated. Getting no assistance, that started me down the road of, “if you’re not gonna help me, I need to get rid of you.” I knew it was gonna…financially, it definitely–city council only pays $300 a week. I was making $7,000 a speech, so–
Q: Yeah, that’s a tough call.
A: So it’s a little difference on the pay side. But the value in helping folks out, that’s way beyond any monetary kind of value. There’s definitely an emotional cost because your entire life is open to public scrutiny and ridicule.
Jackson, MS Councilman De’Keither Stamps
Q: I have watched a few segments from your last couple of meetings. It seems to me that you in particular get frustrated that the city council is not doing 100 percent of its job.
A: Well, I mean…everyone has their differences of opinion of how things should go. And they’re entitled to them. We’ve made some structural changes. We used to meet every week. And I said, “this is an inefficient workflow. Why did we just come in here to vote for two items that could be on the other two weeks’ meetings?”
Q: How many council members stay to the end of the meetings?
A: [Pause] Um, I don’t keep track of it. I stay till most of the end of all them.
Q: Do council meetings matter more to you than to the other council members do you think?
A: Well, I have a different level of commitment. I live my life in a very different space. See, um, I’m willing to die for what I believe in. So the commitment level for me for the things I believe in is different.
Q: Big news for you: in a couple of days, you’re going to Washington, D.C. to be part of the presidential transition! Are you going to be taking down the portraits of George Washington and putting up pictures of his golf course?
A: Ha, no, we’ll be in a series of briefings to ensure several issues we’ve been working on don’t fall through the cracks.
Follow Councilman De’Keither Stamps on Twitter: @DeKeitherStamps
Vermont is the land of maple syrup and Bernie Sanders. But it’s also home to some spicy city council happenings. I talked to Burlington Councilor Selene Colburn, who has some interesting connections to famous Vermonters and is also a dancer/choreographer!
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Q: What’s the turnout like at city council meetings?
A: We have pretty packed meetings from time to time. Right now, we’re debating whether to change our zoning to allow a 14-story mall. Which doesn’t sound very tall, but it would be the tallest building in the state of Vermont.
Q: Fourteen stories?
A: Fourteen. And it would cause us to lose our distinction of being the state with the smallest tallest building. I think that honor will go to Maine!
Q: You have 12 council members. Four are Democrats, four are Progressive, three are independent, and one is a Republican. That sounds messy. Is it?
A: We make it work. It is pretty wild to have one Republican on a city council of 12 in a city of 40,000 people.
Q: Is this guy more of a build-the-wall Republican or an urbane, rational Republican?
A: He is not a build-the-wall Republican. He also serves dually as a state legislator and city councilor simultaneously. He’s what we call a “Vermont Republican.”
Q: In addition to being a city councilor, you are a dancer and a choreographer. If you could take the city council meetings and toss them aside and choreograph them to make them really pop, what would you change?
A: The public forum part is really frustrating for the public because they get their two minutes and they get to talk at the council–and then we move forward. There’s no back and forth from that point on really. Thinking choreographically, that’s like a prelude to the performance that compositionally doesn’t ping back to the main event ever.
Burlington, VT Councilor Selene Colburn
Q: If Burlington city council meetings were a Ben & Jerry’s flavor, what would they be?
A. Hazed and Confused
B. Americone Dream
C: Vanilla
A: Definitely not vanilla. I’m gonna have to go with Hazed and Confused.
Q: You do realize that is a reference to marijuana, right?
A: [Laughs]
Q: Have you met Ben and/or Jerry?
A: I have! Jerry just endorsed my campaign. They’re really active locally politically. They never go anywhere without scooping ice cream. Every event we have in Vermont that is remotely lefty and political, someone is there scooping free Ben & Jerry’s.
Q: You would think with all that dessert, Vermont would be one of the most obese states.
A: We’re not, we’re pretty healthy. We walk, bike…jump around. I had a meeting with [a constituent] about some of her concerns about a project and she was like, “ugh! Enough with the walking and the biking and the jumping! I’m so tired of hearing about all the jumping!”
Q: [Laughs] Now, we are taping this before Election Day, but you are running for the Vermont state house of representatives and you are unopposed. So congratulations on your victory.
A: Thank you! I hope there’s no vigorous write-in campaign in the last 48 hours.
Q: That would be terrible news. And Donald Trump is our president now, so that’s not ideal.
Hey, City Councilheads! Today we debut a special, semi-regular feature called “Best Thing, Worst Thing.” (No, it’s not about the election.) For an explanation of the project, check out the page here. If you like storytelling and municipal lore, I think you’ll dig what the chef cooked up.
To dive right in, head over to the City Council Chronicles podcast and download the latest episode. Or you can play it below.
Episode 1: Castle Rock, Colorado
Source: Town of Castle Rock
Castle Rock is a town of 56,000 people located in Douglas County, 30 miles south of Denver. It is named after a distinct rock formation at the north end of the historic downtown. Outside of downtown, there are also several office parks, subdivisions, and the Outlets retail area. Castle Rock’s population is largely wealthy and white. Historically, Douglas County has been rural–home to ranchers. In the last several decades, it has grown dramatically as a Denver suburb. In this episode, we hear from a businesswoman, a pastor, a former Navy SEAL, and the town’s mayor.
If you saw the Mesa city council meeting review, you’ll recognize Kevin Christopher as the announcer of a HUGE agenda. But did you know he once reported on city council meetings? He did–and he has the stories to prove it!
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Q: You were a journalist covering city council meetings in the early 1980s. How were meetings different in the ’80s other than, obviously, uglier eyeglasses?
A: Yeah, and interesting hair and fashion! I think the biggest change is the technology. Nowadays, it’s very easy to find out the agendas.
Q: Were there always a lot of spectators?
A: I think because [Midwesterners] have deep roots, they tend to be a little more passionate about issues. We always had pretty good crowds. Madison had like 20 aldermen–for a population of about 250,000–
Q: Wow! Chicago has 50 alderman, and they certainly have more than double the population of Madison.
A: Even that’s huge. Fifty people! Cincinnati had nine. Mesa has seven.
Q: What do you think is the ideal number of city council members?
A: I think seven or nine is good.
Q: When you started in Cincinnati, Jerry Springer was there. Did he stand out at all during council meetings?
A: He was pretty colorful. He was very charismatic and personable and I think that’s what was very appealing.
Q: You’ve sat through city council meetings in Cincinnati, Madison, and Mesa. Take me down the list–who stuck out?
A: I think the most memorable was a woman in Cincinnati. It wasn’t her real name, but she went by Fifi Taft Rockefeller. She claimed to have affairs with presidents and Winston Churchill. She’d be at city council almost all the time.
Mesa, AZ Public Information Officer Kevin Christopher
A: Generally you put like a three-minute limit on people to speak. And in Madison, they didn’t do that. I’m thinking, “no wonder these meetings go six and seven hours.”
Q: They had no time limits?
A: No! I thought that was insane.
Q: It is! Other than running egregiously long meetings, how did council members treat you in the media?
A: As long as you were fair, they treated you very well. I remember in Cincinnati, they all enjoyed the microphones and cameras. If it wasn’t a particular hot button issue being debated at the time, they would get up in the middle of the meeting and you could go to the back of the room and talk.
Q: For your current job in Mesa, you read the entire agenda–45 items–and it took you eight whole minutes to get through. Do you prepare for that? Do you do vocal warm ups?
A: I look it over. There’s a few tricky–with restaurants and things that are in Spanish. My favorite of all time: a liquor license application for “What the Hell Bar & Grill.”
Q: Are there any memorable moments from Mesa?
A: When I first came to the city, we had one council member, Tom Rawles, who decided back in 2007 he was not going to stand for the Pledge of the Allegiance. So he kind of pulled a Colin Kaepernick. This was a protest against the war in Iraq. All of a sudden we started getting these people showing up at meetings and criticizing him. He actually got police protection for a few days to be safe. I’m not sure what he’s doing now.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This meeting was insane. Therefore, I turned my review into a dramatic reading. For your listening pleasure:
It was a typical day at the Hackensack city council–which, for a normal person, would be absolutely terrifying.
A tall man lumbered to the podium, his shoulders hunched and his hands meaty.
“Richard Salkin in Hackensack, New Jersey,” he announced.
From the back of the room came a heckler’s yell. “WHAT ADDRESS?”
The man, Salkin, threw up his hands and made it clear: do not f*ck with me.
“I’m not going to be interrupted by Lenny Nix. It’s just not gonna happen.”
Mayor John Labrosse smacked his gavel from his high perch. “Lenny! Do not interrupt. He said Hackensack. That’s fine.”
“Everything is fine. This wood is bulletproof, right?”
Ohhhh, mayor. Things were anything BUT fine. Because Mr. Salkin wheeled around and pounced on his accuser.
“151 PROSPECT AVENUE,” he screamed. “YOU WANNA GO SLASH MY TIRES?! HAVE A GOOD TIME!”
I assure him: at this point, no one was having a good time–especially now that he started talking about his wife’s lawsuit against the very city council members he was shouting at.
“The case soon will be awaiting a trial date–” he began, before Mayor Labrosse jumped in with the gavel.
“Mr. Salkin, I hate to interrupt you, but we’re not going to discuss current litigation.”
This only made his veins pop harder. “I don’t CARE if you discuss it or not! I can speak about whatever I want. Please reset it since I was interrupted!” he hollered at the timekeeper.
What came next was a verbal avalanche of biblical proportions. A tsunami of hatred aimed at the mayor and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino.
“Mr. Labrosse and Mrs. Canestrino seem to enjoy vilifying victims of your misdeeds. I am speaking out to expose what you have done. My wife has been the victim of your cheap shots. There is no longer any insurance coverage to protect the taxpayers in Debbie’s case thanks to your incompetence and your venomous motivations!”
The man looked directly into the camera–into my eyes. I nearly jumped out of my La-Z-Boy. “Anyone who watches this on YouTube, if you have any questions, you’re very welcome to call me. I’d be thrilled to explain it you.”
Believe me: I have many, many questions. But I totally, 100 percent will not be calling him. He is scary.
Please stop looking at me.
But if you thought the madness ended there–oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. It was time for another council member to get toasted in the hot seat.
“I actually had a question for Mr. Battaglia,” a woman in a scarf looked dead-on at kindly old Council Member Leonardo Battaglia. “Can you explain what you meant during the last meeting when you said that there would be ice cream and 19-year-old girls at the SportZone?”
Battaglia, caught off guard, spoke in halting, accented English. “That was a joke I told to the guy, Chris, because I saw him many times at Dunkin’ Donuts having ice cream with 19-year-old girls, and they were not his daughter.”
“What’s funny about that?” demanded the woman.
“Because I saw him many time in working hours. And that was not right what he was doing.”
I literally cannot believe what I’m hearing. I don’t know who’s more ridiculous: him for making the terrible joke or her for deconstructing the terrible joke. But she wasn’t done raking him over the coals:
“You’re how old, sir?” she asked. He did not reply.
“It’s actually pretty disgusting for a council member to make such a comment and expect it to be funny when it denigrates women. You should apologize.”
She stomped away from the podium to scattered applause. But oh, goodness. Look who stomped back up: Lenny, the heckler from earlier. He was wearing a sweatshirt and headphones. And he spoke at the volume of a sonic boom:
“I’M NOT GONNA BS AROUND. THERE’S A LOTTA PEOPLE MAKING A LOTTA GOD DANG MONEY IN THIS TOWN THAT DON’T DESERVE IT. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. NOT EVEN CLOSE.”
Those headphones play the nonstop sound of German artillery.
With that, Lenny wandered away from the podium–still with the headphones and still screaming at the top of his lungs.
“DON’T MAKE UP STORIES UP ABOUT ME.”
The mayor sounded so, so tired. “We won’t talk about you at all.”
“GOOD,” Lenny hollered as Hackensack’s finest escorted him out.
The mayor turned to the middle-aged woman next in line. “Sorry, Mrs. Davis.”
“That’s all right. I am a registered nurse. I understand,” she said patiently as Lenny screamed from the back. “I just want to say that this is one of the first meetings I’ve been to that sounded like a city council meeting should be.”
Lady, I hate to tell you, but you’re not even close.
After watching an Orlando city council meeting, I sat down with Commissioner Regina Hill to find out just how wild things in Florida can get. It turns out, nothing rattles her. We talked about Harry Potter, alligators, and more sobering subjects.
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Q: If Orlando city council meetings were a ride at Disney World, what would they be?
A.) It’s a Small World
B.) Space Mountain
C.) the boring monorail that takes you around the parking lot
A: It’s most definitely not a “Small World” here at council. And it’s not a boring ride on the monorail. I think it would be Space Mountain, but it’s not a roller coaster. I would call it…adventurous.
Q: Adventurous? Maybe more like something in the Harry Potter theme park?
A: I’m sorry, but I haven’t gone to the theme park. From what I understand about Harry Potter, most of it is magic and illusions. It’s real what we do here.
Q: I once heard from another city council member that they did not ask what they considered “basic” or “stupid” questions in the council meetings because people might judge them. Do you feel the same way?
A: I think to not ask a question does a disservice to our constituents. I am very direct. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
Orlando, FL Commissioner Regina Hill
Q: During your campaign, it came out that you had been arrested as an adult. Do you think people treat you differently in the city council meetings because of that?
A: I mean, of course everyone has opinions. I’m very confident of who I am. I’m making some wrongs right. I try to remember that I am sitting here as someone who has been given this opportunity. I represent hope.
Q: You are in Florida. And the media is full of stories about Florida that are pretty wacky. What is the oddest thing that you have seen at a city council meeting?
A: I’ll tell you, when I’m sitting on the dais, I don’t look at any oddity. What I see is free speech. What might be strange to me is someone’s reality. I think it’s a beautiful thing when people can be themselves.
Q: I respect your respectfulness…but you’re telling me that if you were in the council chamber and an alligator walked in, THAT wouldn’t faze you at all?
A: What would faze me is: how did the security guards let an alligator get in the chambers?!
Q: [Laughs] That is such a good point!
A: Who was the gatekeeper? I wouldn’t be mad at the alligator!
Q: Commissioner, when do you think is the moment when you “made it?” Or do you feel like you have not made it yet?
A: I feel like I haven’t made it yet. But the night I was elected was–outside of becoming a nurse after getting my rights restored–one of the proudest moments that I can recall. Because it was almost like redemption. Even after people said I didn’t deserve an opportunity because of my past. I haven’t stopped working 60-70 hours a week since I’ve been elected. Even in the last year, I haven’t taken time off to grieve my daughter’s murder. It’s not easy being a public servant. But is it worth it? Absolutely.
Follow Commissioner Regina Hill on Twitter: @ReginaHillFL
City Council Chronicles 