Tag: goverment

Interview #63: Williamsburg, VA Council Member Benny Zhang (with podcast)

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

Benny Zhang graduated from the College of William & Mary last year–then started as a city council member one month later! We talk about his unique first meeting and his pre-council meeting ritual.

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Q: Your swearing-in meeting happened a little differently than those of most city council members. You’re packed into the old courthouse and the town crier yells, “god save the king!” What did you think of that?

A: Being a history buff, I think that was entirely cool. Being the first Asian-American elected to that office, I felt a little bit out of place given where my heritage came from.

Q: Being in Williamsburg for college for four years and walking through Colonial Williamsburg, did that make you feel out of place? Or was it just this moment where you thought, “this is too much pageantry for me?”

A: I think it was just that incident. You also have to see the picture: there is a golden mace [and] the reenactor talks about how, in certain southern states, that mace signifies that there’s a session for the government. But also they’d use it as a drinking cup! I was very tempted to drink from that mace with some beer.

Q: You got onto the city council one month after graduating from William & Mary. Were you concerned that becoming a city council member so soon would impact your chances of moving back to your parents’ basement?

A: [Laughs] Not necessarily. My family invested in a home in Williamsburg, which gave me the ability to campaign as, “I am a Williamsburg resident who pays local taxes, receives city services, who also HAPPENS to be a William & Mary student.” I guess technically in this house, I am living in my parents’ basement–

Q: Is that where you’re talking to me from?

A: Yeah, we’re talking from my home base!

Q: I love how millennial-centric this podcast will be!

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Williamsburg, VA Council Member Benny Zhang

Do you wish more students would show up at council meetings to rebut the complaints of residents?

A: Sure. Students comprise 43 percent of the city’s population. In public comment, it might seem totally one-sided. But not everyone that you wish was in the room are in the room.

Q: Was there any expectation that you would be the “students’ representative” on the council?

A: For me, definitely. I am that resident in Williamsburg and since I can empathize with other residents, I think they see me as more of a young professional.

Q: Have any of your friends who see you now in council meetings said, “Councilman Benny Zhang is different from the Benny Zhang we knew?”

A: Yeah, I think there is a degree of awe there. I will say, I have not changed my wallpaper on my iPhone–“never forget where you came from.” I’m just the same guy on that dais. I’m a little more serious because I have to. I got involved in city council [by] sitting in on meetings. I would go up the dais and say hi and bye to them. What I do now is I always arrive 30 minutes before a city council meeting and I go up to the audience before the meeting starts and try to shake everyone’s hand. That’s an interaction I wish I had when I was sitting in on council meetings.

Follow Council Member Benny Zhang on Twitter: @benming_zhang

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Interview #32: Lee’s Summit, MO Council Member Chris Moreno (with podcast)

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

Lee’s Summit city council meetings have been extremely contentious over the past eight months. Two council members have even called on each other to resign. One of them, Chris Moreno, is facing a recall election because some people are unhappy with his conduct at council meetings. But he remains steadfast. He talks here about his preparation for council meetings and how he deals with the criticism.

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Q: On the day of the council meetings, what do you do to prepare? Do you have a ritual?

A: I just do a lot of studying. I do a lot of prayer, a lot of thinking about the agenda and the topic itself. I play a lot of worship music throughout my breaks.

Q: Interesting. When you were first elected, did you have to do an orientation on things like how to make a motion and how to debate?

A: Yeah, Robert’s Rules of Order and all that good stuff. I was a debater in high school, so I kind of knew [that stuff].

Q: Where did the debating team stand in the social hierarchy in your high school?

A: I was a basketball guy. I loved basketball and so when I was introduced to debate, I kind of was like, “this is not for me.” But I loved the challenge. I loved public speaking. Playing sports, my friends–I loved them all, but we weren’t exactly straight-A students, you know?

Q: Gotcha. So, it came out last year that allegedly Council Member Diane Forte improperly got city contracts for her own business. You were very critical of her and it bled over into the council meetings. You said this about her:

I personally do not believe that after the lies you told to the cameras and to this body, that this can continue to go on.

Here was her response:

To come on this council and try to destroy relationships that I have built in this city–if anyone’s going to resign, it’s not going to be me! It’s going to be you!

How do you think the other council members and staff felt while this was going on?

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Lee’s Summit, MO Council Member Chris Moreno

A: The context of this was: that was four weeks later and she was refusing to acknowledge her illegal business deals. For me, this isn’t personal. For me, it’s about government. We should not have politicians profiting off of taxpayer dollars.

Q: You are facing a recall election in April. Can you think of anything you said–or the way in which you said it–at the council meetings that you would have done differently?

A: No. I think I actually was more courteous than what I should have been. I couldn’t say right then and there, “you have deals that violated state law.” Looking back, I wish I would have.

Q: You once called the public comment at your council meetings a “Jerry Springer Show.” What would you do to reform it?

A: We have these people coming in with an agenda: to personally attack politicians on grounds that have nothing to do with city business. That being said, I’m not opposed to criticism. They have a right to do it. But we should not allow for a political campaign to take place at the dais.

Follow Council Member Chris Moreno on Twitter: @MorenoDadKC