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.
There is a lot of news to keep up with these days and it would be nice if someone explained what’s really important. Well, you’re in luck: there is a new episode of the “Best Thing, Worst Thing” project! For an explanation, check out the page here. Basically, you will be transported to a city or town where you (probably) have never been. You will hear from the locals about the things they like and the things they cannot stand.
So pack up your skis and put some hot chocolate in a thermos. Then head over to the City Council Chronicles podcast to download the latest episode. Or you can play it below.
Episode 5: Vail, Colorado
Photo source: Town of Vail
Vail is about 100 miles west of Denver in Eagle County, Colorado. Most people know Vail as home to the most popular ski resort in the country. But there is actually a town of 5,300 people who work at, ski on, or vacation near the resort. The town is fairly new–only 51 years old. It is a fantastic place for people who love the outdoors. But it is fairly remote in the Rocky Mountains. And it is increasingly adversarial for people who work there to also live nearby. In this episode, we hear from a journalist, an events manager, a school board member, a house cleaner, and a rabbi.
It’s our first dip into the waters of Alberta and boy, what a fun time it was! I talked to Bev Esslinger, a councilor in Edmonton. We addressed accusations that the Edmonton council meetings are a “man cave,” and also discussed the seemingly-unrelated subjects of prayer and city hall security.
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Q: Something caught my eye on the CBC. This is a story from January:
Do you agree with this characterization of your city council meetings as an “upscale man cave?”
A: I wouldn’t call it a man cave. The last time, we didn’t have that many women running for council. We’ve been really working on that in Edmonton to improve that. We’ve changed some of our policies to be more family friendly–it’s good for everyone if meetings end at 5:30 rather than going into the evening after a full day of debate. No one’s at their best when the meeting goes past that time.
Q: Something that was big at your city council was the 2015 Supreme Court decision saying that prayer at government meetings was not allowed. You didn’t seem to like this, but looking back at almost two and a half years without prayer, is it still a disappointment?
A: Absolutely. We used to start our meeting with a prayer from a different interfaith group each time. It was always a very nice part of the day. I thought it reflected the diversity we have.
Q: City council meetings are a business meeting, ceremony, and public forum rolled into one. Did it help you do your job to have someone give a prayer right before you heard about things like zoning?
A: It was a moment of pause to reflect on our community’s diversity. It was a moment where people got to wish us their best. Hey, we can all use more prayer!
Q: I’ll give that an amen. But one of the suggestions to replace the prayer was to have a “moment of reflection” when citizens would say what it meant to them to be an Edmontonian through a poem or a song. You were against it. Why?
A: It went from a prayer to something that could be very broad. I didn’t think it was the same thing at all.
Edmonton, AB Councilor Bev Esslinger
Q: Perhaps you haven’t heard a poem about Edmonton that truly blew your socks off. May I read my poem?
A: Why not!
Q: Okay:
Saskatchewan River–
Cold waters as sharp
As Gretzky’s skates.
Light rail
Now going to Century Park.
What’s that?
That’s the Royal Alberta Museum.
History!…Mmm so thirsty;
Better go to the waterpark
At the West Edmonton Mall.
Splash
Into Alberta!
When I visit Edmonton, can I read that at a council meeting?
A: No.
Q: …Okay, let’s change the subject. On September 22, 2015, a group of cab drivers protested during a meeting when you were deciding whether to allow Uber in Edmonton. Have you ever been concerned about your safety at a council meeting?
A: Not really. It’s disruptive–you can’t conduct a meeting. We don’t try to get into it with people. In this case, this large a group of people reacting…you can’t continue your meeting.
Q: You decided to beef up your security with metal detectors and a glass wall. Wouldn’t it be cheaper if the councilors carried guns?
A: That would not be Canadian.
Follow Councilor Bev Esslinger on Twitter: @bevesslinger
It was an exciting day in Northwest Iowa: the city of Sheldon was expecting!
No, not a newborn. Rather, a fully-grown library director.
“We are successful?” Mayor Katricia Meendering inquired with a coffee cup poised at her lips in case a spit take was necessary.
“Yes!” a city employee blurted out enthusiastically.
“Wonderful,” said the mayor, taking a relaxed sip of joe.
“It’s taken us a little bit but we’re happy with Nicole Morgan, who we found from Oskaloosa,” the employee explained, anxiously scanning the council members for a reaction.
There were nods of approval around the room.
“Family?” the mayor quizzed offhandedly. She quickly chuckled and added, “I’m just kidding, you don’t have to answer that.”
The woman was clearly caught off-guard, but didn’t want to say no to Sheldon’s head honcho. “Oh, um, she has family in the area. She’ll be commuting for a bit.”
Okay, folks, let’s not get TOO personal. She hasn’t even started–
“Maybe she could come introduce herself at some point?” city attorney Micah Schreurs inquired hopefully.
“Maybe you could find out what kind of flowers she likes?”
“Sure,” the staffer responded hesitantly. “We’ll…let her acclimate a little bit first.”
“Yep. Get her feet wet. Then…the first meeting in April!” Meendering barked. She immediately broke into another awkward laugh. “I’m just kidding.”
Perhaps. But if I were Nicole, I’d hold off on the unpacking until I made an appearance at city hall.
In a thrilling turn of events, the library wasn’t Sheldon’s only source of breaking news. The mayor coyly waited until the sleepy middle of the meeting to drop this bombshell on the other unsuspecting Cornhuskers: her exclusive tour of the Crossroads Pavilion.
“Wow,” she deadpanned. “If you have not had the opportunity to see the most recent updates they have done…wow. It’s absolutely breathtaking.”
This modern engineering marvel was so inspiring, there was apparently only one word to describe it.
“We were there at noon. Two, three guys [were] putting the floor down and…wow,” she murmured.
Interior of Crossroads Pavilion
But the praise had barely died down before Council Member Pete Hamill brought up a subject that was distinctly not-wow.
“For dog and pet owners, be responsible for your pets. Just heard of two incidents in the past ten days of one person being bit by a dog,” he frowned, propping his elbow on the dais. “And then another person walking their dog being attacked by two strays.”
“Oh, my,” exclaimed the startled mayor. “I thought you were going to talk about ‘doody business’ because I’ve been getting a lot of calls on that.”
Council members silently watched her fold her arms in annoyance.
“That’s serious. I think the doody is serious too, but…” she trailed off.
Not as serious as a dog-mauling was the implication. Let’s hope the new library director isn’t watching. She might just choose to stay in bite-free Oskaloosa.
Final thoughts: Clearly the V.I.P. (Very Important Pavilion) here was Crossroads. I give it 8 out of 10 stars for the “wow” factor.
Folks, the Constitution says that every year the nation needs an update on the state of our city council meetings. I don’t like it any more than you do, but yesterday I stood before a joint session of Congress and did my duty. (Although they seemed a little distracted–was anything else going on?)
If you didn’t catch it on CNN, FOX, or the Lifetime channel, my State of the City Council Meetings address is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM and right here:
Among the highlights, in the past 11 months we have done:
89 city council meeting reviews
37 interviews
2 dramatic readings
6 geese-a-laying
1 superhero play based on a councilmember’s life
Check out the episode to hear excerpts from some of the best stuff!
(And if you want to skip ahead to the fun radio play we did, here it is:)
You may recognize Lan Diep from his city council swearing-in ceremony during which he held a replica Captain America shield:
It was an inspiring moment. But let’s keep our eyes on the prize: he’s a freshman council member in San José (yes, it’s spelled with the accent mark) who is new to the city council meeting game. That’s why I asked him about his “jitters,” his boisterous first meeting, and who his amigas are on the council.
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Q: Before your first meeting, you tweeted this:
I'll sit on the dais for the first time in about 30 minutes and boy, I gots the jitters. You got this, Lân… you got this!
A: You campaign for this thing and until you actually get up there, it’s this abstract idea. You can’t anticipate what the job will be like until you’re actually there. There has been a bit of an awakening–not good or bad. Just different.
Q: Is there some glaring disconnect between us watching you on the city council meetings and what you experience?
A: What I didn’t anticipate is that this would be a lifestyle. You can go to an event and see your mayor or your council member get on stage, say some nice words, and shake people’s hands, then leave. And you think, “wouldn’t it be great to have my name called out to be on that stage!” What you don’t realize is you’re still at that event, but the council member probably has three or four or five more events that day. The physical toll of that was a surprise to me.
Q: Your first council meeting was a doozy. You had a full house of mostly Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans and the topic was whether San José would fly the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (communist Vietnam) or the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag. A hundred people came up and talked emotionally about what the communist flag meant to them. Did it surprise you to have that be so controversial?
A: Um, no. San José is home to the most Vietnamese people in any one city outside of Vietnam. Whenever they can, they do things like get their city government to oppose flying the Red Flag as a way to say to the government in Vietnam, “we reject your rule.”
Q: Is there someone on the city council you consider a best friend?
A: I have two people I feel close to. One is Council Member Dev Davis, who I jokingly call my “work wife.” [We] go around to events together. The other person I’m close to is Council Member Sylvia Arenas, who I’ve jokingly called my “best friend at work.” We made a video together reviewing the crab sandwich at McDonald’s that’s being offered for a limited time in San José!
Q: Lan, can you tell the listeners what you put in front of you on the dais during the council meetings?
A: [Laughs] I have a little Captain America Funko POP! figurine that I put in front of my computer monitor so when I’m speaking, he’s hanging out with me. I’m owning the Captain America thing that I unintentionally thrust upon myself. It was a surprise to me that a lot of people tweeted at me saying that I was cool or wished I was their council member. Some people called me an embarrassment. But what was really touching and unexpected were the people who said I presented to them some symbol of hope–I reminded them to look past party lines.
Follow Councilmember Lan Diep on Twitter at: @LTDiep
It was the “O.J. Simpson trial” of city council meetings–a sensational media circus at Tega Cay City Hall, where the whole town was whispering about Public Enemy Number One:
Coyotes.
“This week–actually, yesterday–Andrew set traps over in the Lake Ridge area,” revealed city manager Charlie Funderburk. “Today we caught Coyote #1 and Coyote #4 in between the water tower and the footbridge.” Funderburk gestured to an onscreen map like General Eisenhower explaining the plan at D-Day.
(That is, if D-Day took place at a country club. “For the golfers, this is between holes 14 and 15,” Funderburk added.)
“Andrew, if you could come to the podium–” the city manager suddenly beckoned, “–Andrew’s gonna take a few minutes, demonstrating the trap that he’s used.”
“He will demonstrate it on this guy sitting next to me. Seal the exits.”
I was expecting some Crocodile Dundee-style hulk of a man to lumber from the shadows holding a frothing dog in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Instead, a relatively slender fellow with a baseball cap barely lifted his eyes from the floor.
“Okay, um, I’ve been doing the coyote management plan here for the past week and a half. It’s my opinion that many of these areas [are] actually just for foraging and hunting,” he said calmly as a dozen wildlife-weary citizens stared blankly at him for guidance.
Quickly, he shifted to the topic that was in the back of everyone’s mind: the trap.
“It’s not the cruel device that people think they are. Back in the Daniel Boone era, you had traps that had teeth and stuff like that,” he attempted to lighten the mood. “I’ll bring it up here to show you.”
The audience leaned toward the aisles to get a glimpse of the football-size death clamp–er, humane trap.
“It’s like a handcuff,” the man reassured everyone before clamping it onto his own hand without so much as wincing.
Eat your heart out, big-city council meetings. You’re voting on bike lanes? This guy just shut his own appendage in a coyote trap.
“I do this three times a day for the endorphins.”
Councilmember Ryan Richard had an itch of macabre curiosity. “No coyote has chewed its leg off while being stuck in the trap, correct?”
“Correct,” the man guaranteed Richard.
But Mayor George Sheppard wasn’t buying this claim that the traps were working. And he wouldn’t stay quiet any longer.
“Okay, so you’ve caught four coyotes. We’ve had people stand at that EXACT podium telling us that the city’s being run RAMPANT with coyotes,” he thundered. “If it’s not coyotes, what is it?”
The trapper took a deep breath, having anticipated this question. “I think a lot of people–in the hysteria that’s been created by the coyote–are catching glimpses of red fox.”
At this point, a Boy Scout ran to the front of the room and yanked the microphone down to his level. “What do you do with the coyotes when you take them offsite?”
Uh-oh
Everyone went silent. The trapper raised the mic and stared dead-on at the Scout.
“The question of the night,” he observed slowly. “I don’t want to have to kill an animal. Unfortunately, they have to be destroyed. Because I can’t discharge a firearm in city limits, I have to take it offsite. And the way I dispatch animals is with a .22 caliber. It’s a quick shot to the head–”
“Okay,” Councilmember Dottie Hersey interrupted him, clearly shaken. She clutched her throat in discomfort. “Next question.”
Scott Neal is a fun guy to talk to. Not only has he been the city manager of multiple cities around the Midwest, but he’s a bit of a YouTube star for his “On the Job” video series. We talked about what he learned from British city councils and how public commenters affect how he thinks about the city.
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Q: I want to start 4,000 miles away from Edina in England. You were there for ten days in 2005 and you met a queen’s dozen of local councilors. Did you learn anything about city council meetings over there–other than, obviously, their meetings are on the opposite side of the dais?
A: It was a lot of fun. We learned that most of the cities we dropped in on had a huge number of council members compared to the U.S.
Q: What number are we talking?
A: Two dozen, sometimes more. They were amazed that we could get work done with five council members. They had in their mind a link between the number of elected officials and the effectiveness of the organization.
Q: Have you ever gotten sad when a city council member retires or leaves?
A: I’ve had that a number of times over my career. The one that comes to mind most recently is a council member in Edina named Ann Swenson. She was part of the council that hired me. She was clear in what she wanted, which made her an easy person to work for.
Q: At her last council meeting, she said that you put your pen in the air when you want to speak, so she gave you a pen that lights up! Do you use that sparkle pen in meetings?
A: I don’t use it in council meetings. I do use it around my office, yeah!
Edina, MN City Manager Scott Neal
Q: In Edina, you’ve had a couple of council meetings that stretched on for petty long because you had a bunch of public commenters. You sent out this tweet at a meeting:
Is that a frequent occurrence?
A: No! I started in this line of work prior to city councils having their meetings shown on local access. I remember when we were making those decisions, city officials worried about that very thing happening: what if we’re having a public hearing and somebody watches it on TV and they decide to just come down and join in? I used to think that was unnecessary to worry about. [This] was the first time in my career it’s ever happened! I’m glad he put on his pants and came here–
Q: Wait, you assume they’re not wearing pants at home?!
A: It’s their privilege. It’s a free country.
Q: Amen to that. There was one contentious public comment back in October. A black man was recorded on video being handled roughly by an Edina police officer. At the next council meeting, for three hours people came up to the podium and they were outraged. When that many concerned people show up, do you think that means the city has failed?
A: I do not. Not necessarily. Doesn’t mean it [hasn’t]. I have had in my career a couple of council meetings that reached that level of anger. They haven’t come around very often, but it certainly makes you sit up and take notice.
It is Presidents Days here in the U.S., which means we are taking this day to honor all of the city council presidents/chairs/mayors who make their meetings run like a finely-tuned clock. But more importantly, let’s have a look back at where we chronicled with the January month in review.
Take a moment to find a city council meeting review you haven’t read or a podcast episode you haven’t listened to, then spend your holiday catching up!
Love was in the air at the Coralville Valentine’s Day city council meeting! It was a momentous night: the city had finally asked a new police chief to tie the knot. And he said, “I do.”
“A very prestigious, memorable item on our agenda,” Mayor John Lundell flashed a big grin. “I would start by entertaining a motion to approve the appointment of Shane Kron as our police chief.”
The council members were so giddy, they trampled over each other to agree. “So moved!” a couple of them shouted out.
Mayor Lundell chuckled. “We have an outstanding police department in Coralville. Our outgoing chief, Barry Bedford–he’s been part of the department for 43 years. But also, 16 of those years, Shane Kron was a member of the department.”
City administrator Kelly Hayworth gently broke in. “It’s longer than 16. I believe it’s 27.”
Realizing he was WELL outside the margin of error, the mayor blurted sheepishly, “Oh, I’m sorry!”
Your honor, take it from me: before you commit to a new beau, you should know their WHOLE relationship history!
“Mayor, this paper just says, ‘do u like me? yes, no, maybe’.”
Also, don’t say weird things about them. Like this:
“All four candidates were cream. But the cream rose above the cream to the top. And here he is, and is our new chief,” rhapsodized Council Member Bill Hoeft in a stilted Maya-Angelou-of-the-Midwest rhythm.
After the chief was sworn in, the mayor caused a few disheartened chuckles when he announced, “now on to the exciting next item: the budget!”
Hey, hey, don’t be so facetious, mayor. There was plenty of good news for C-ville: property taxes were unchanged for the eighth consecutive year! The water plant is getting a brand new filter building! And corn has never been yellower!
Nice chart
A man in a striped shirt and red tie sprung to the podium and signed the guest register. He had prepared a wide-ranging soliloquy about the budget, the city council, and his…um, unique hobbies.
“As always, I have reviewed the budget,” he said. “I kind of live the budget. I’m a gym rat for budgeting, if you will.”
I will. Go on.
“I would ask, how’s your own checkbook? You don’t have to answer that, but you’re dealing with your money at home and your money down here, so they should both be in pretty good shape.”
You’re losing me, citizen. I don’t think anyone’s going to whip out their checkbooks, so how about we close strong?
“Think about this: if you shower quicker, you would save yourself some money. And anytime you see someone watering their lawn, send them a thank-you card because they’ll be using all that water and spend a lot more money than you will if you shower,” he proclaimed like Columbo cracking the case.
The council members took a second to digest this insider tip.
“Now, here’s a little trick about sewage treatment–“
“Thank you for caring” about the budget, Council Member Laurie Goodrich offered politely.
As council members gathered up their papers, the city attorney had a piece of news to share that he had evidently been sitting on for 45 minutes.
“The city attorney’s office approves the appointment of Shane. Also, I can’t help but notice that we don’t have to worry about him tearing his hair out over anything!”
Everyone let out a snicker at the shiny-domed chief. I’m sure he can look forward to maaannnnany more years of jokes like that.
City Council Chronicles 