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.
Summer may be winding down, but the city council meetings are heating up! The biggest news out of August was International City Hall Selfie Day. You can check your social media for the thousands of images generated on the holiest of high holidays or you can peruse my Top 10 list instead. I also invited a top selfie expert on the podcast to pick an ultimate winner.
Of course, we saw our fair share of drama in city council meetings, including two mayors who raised their voices at council members and an entire council meeting that very quickly turned into a bonfire. If you missed that Jerry Springer plotline, go scan the August Month in Review.
And if you don’t know why this man is pointing at heaven…it’s because he’s pointing at heaven. But the reason will blow your heathen mind:
July was noteworthy for two reasons. First: it was Mayor’s Month! That’s right, we talked on the podcast to an unprecedented four mayors from three continents. What we heard was heartwarming in some cases and tear-jerking in others.
Second: this being July, of course we saw fireworks! Mostly they were of the verbal variety. But in one case, someone actually brandished a firework in a council meeting. If you don’t remember that moment, perhaps you should browse our July Month in Review page.
And if you’re still questioning whether July’s council meetings are worth a second look, at least find out why this woman is so g–d– happy:
Unless you’re a sovereign citizen, yesterday was the yugest, bigliest day of the year: a celebration of local government called #CityHallSelfie Day! Naturally, that holiday is firmly up our alley.
On social media there are now hundreds–possibly thousands–of city hall pictures from around the earth. That is why I have curated the best city council selfies.
My criteria were stricter than a disgruntled warden. These pictures needed to
A. be taken by or feature a city council member/mayor; or
B. be taken in a council chamber; and
C. be a true selfie — i.e. taken by someone in the picture.
In a few weeks, we will have a municipal selfie expert on the podcast to help me judge the best city hall art! That being said, here are my top 10:
The layers here are incredible: while a reporter takes a selfie, another audience member takes a picture of the city council taking a selfie. Please tell me there’s a fourth cell phone somewhere so that the selfie chain can be even longer.
Ah yes, the power pose. While I think the intended vibe is “tough but fair,” it would also be appropriate to have a speech bubble reading, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
It appears that Jeff City’s mayor, Carrie Tergin, stepped away from the council meeting–only to be replaced by a cardboard cutout wearing eclipse glasses! (My sources tell me the cutout also runs a helluva council meeting.) I love the spectrum of emotions from council members; they range from “meh” to “I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE!”
There were oodles of voyeuristic pictures featuring people in the process of taking selfies. I like this one for two reasons: first, Columbia has set up their selfie station in advance–major points there. And second, this proves that you can have a good selfie or you can have a good portrait, but it’s hard to have a good portrait of a selfie.
Dallas lands a spot on the list thanks to this fellow gunning it through the city council selfie loophole. Not only is it ingenious to have a chart of all council members’ faces, but do you see that flamingo shirt?! Memorable for sure.
Hats galore! Witches in the back, viking in the front, and the mayor in a top hat inside the council chamber. There aren’t nearly enough props in city government, so nice job raiding the costume store.
Uh, paging all art museums: who wants this masterpiece on their wall?! Seriously, what a trippy and visionary take on a selfie by Alder Maurice Cheeks! I’m getting a bit nauseous, but part of me wants to put on some sitar music and ponder the circular nature of life.
Gaithersburg had all hands on deck. Council Member Ryan Spiegel covered the outside perimeter, Council Member Neil Harris staked out the inside, and Mayor Jud Ashman took the extreeeeeeeeeeeme eastern part of Gaithersburg: Europe! Good teamwork, gentlemen.
“OH, FOR GOD’S SAKE. WHY DIDN’T WE THINK TO USE THE HORSE?!” That’s what I imagine every media person in local government is saying this morning as they bang their head on a desk. Seriously, hats and helmets WAY off to Ocean City for setting next year’s bar at “getting a horse into a council chamber.”
Known as the “Dry Wit of Wichita” (I made that up), Jeff Longwell can be ornery, humorous, and self-aware at council meetings. We had a fun chat about his 10 years on the council.
—
Q: At the May 9, 2017 council meeting, you were not actually there. Vice Mayor Janet Miller was running things. Here is how she started off:
Vice Mayor: For those of you who are wondering why I’m here and the mayor is not, his orneriness has finally caught up with him. He is home with kidney stones! He’s probably watching, so our thoughts are with you and I’ve told you not to be so ornery!
I’m not a medical doctor, but I DO believe orneriness IS the cause of kidney stones. Were you watching the meeting at home?
A: I was. I was in and out of taking pain medication. I was battling probably in the worst phases of my very first kidney stone.
Q: How much more pain did it cause you that she was bringing up your kidney stones on TV in front of the whole city?
A: [Laughs] Yeah, there’s not much you can hide as a public official! The nice thing is I received a lot of sympathy from people all over the city.
Q: I want to ask about the joint meeting between the Wichita city council and the Sedgwick County commission from June 27 of this year. You were negotiating a contract for ambulance services that the county provides. I don’t know if you’ve read The Art of the Deal, but in a negotiation, you are supposed to go in with your last acceptable alternative in mind–then threaten nuclear war with North Korea. What was your strategy?
A: [Laughs] I didn’t need a strategy to get them to deal. We held all of the cards! We had the option of signing the agreement or voiding the agreement and doing something on our own.
Wichita, KS Mayor Jeff Longwell
Q: I noticed you cracking some jokes in the meeting. Do you use humor as a negotiating tactic?
A: I use humor sometimes to drive a point home without trying to make people defensive. My humor’s a little dry at times. It takes a while before you fully understand my humor.
Q: If you came out of a council meeting and couldn’t help a citizen or you voted in a way that made people mad, how long would that stick with you?
A: Oh, wow. We don’t have the luxury to dwell on votes. What I like to tell people: it’s great to have robust discussion. But once that vote’s been taken, everyone should act as if that vote was unanimous.
Q: Have you ever had second thoughts about anything that’s happened in a council meeting?
A: There’s some times where I’ve remained totally quiet and just let people talk and later regret, “why didn’t I say something?” Because what we often forget is what it looks like from the other end. If someone is making statements that aren’t necessarily true and we don’t counter that…oftentimes we say, “thank you. Okay, next speaker.” If we don’t counter those mistruths, at some point many in the community will go, “you didn’t say anything, so it must be true.”
Q: You’d err on the side of inserting yourself into the argument?
Emotions were running high at City Hall as Mayor Ray Mann called the meeting to order with a tearful farewell to an old friend.
“Daniela,” he murmured, “for the last time in this building that has served us well, would you call the roll?”
That’s right, the doors are closing on fabled Hydraulic Street and the message was clear: don’t leave anything behind tonight.
“We’ll be closed Thursday and Friday and Monday,” announced the city administrator. “We’ll be moving from this facility to the new facility.”
“We’ve got movers in place. So it’s gonna be a busy day Thursday and Friday,” the mayor observed, glancing sideways at a couple of the council members as if to say, “you’re still coming to carry boxes, right?”
The new Park City Hall, I’m assuming
But rather than rest up and conserve their energy, the council found themselves thrust into the middle of an existential crisis.
“What has happened is the Kansas legislature decided to take a more proactive approach encouraging people to use their seatbelts,” an employee explained to steely glances. “They established a ‘Seatbelt Education Fund.’ Fines for seatbelts will increase from $10 to $30, and $20 will be sent to fund this.”
Then he revealed the kicker: “They’ve also added a section that says that no county or municipality can change it. Because we have an ordinance on the books that says the seatbelt fine is only $10, we have to change it.”
Council Member Tom Jones jumped in sounding about as enthusiastic as someone who’s been asked to move an entire city hall. “We don’t have any choice,” he sighed.
He added, seemingly with sarcasm, “they’re ‘helping’ us out again.”
“Could they also help us load the vans on Thursday?”
But while Park City was cleaning up its ordinances, there was a lingering question: who would clean the brand new City Hall?
“They come in and clean the building while staff is not there?” quizzed Council Member George Capps.
“Yes, sir,” the clerk answered.
Capps seemed astonished. “What have you done to check their security?”
“They go through an extensive background check and get fingerprinted,” she assured him. “And those same individuals will have to clean every week.”
“Okay,” he eased up. “Thank you.”
Getting fingerprinted to clean a city hall? What kind of top-secret, classified, national security information are they stor–hold on. I just noticed something: EVERYONE is wearing official Park City-branded shirts! Man, that mayor runs a tight ship here.
I DEMAND YOU SEND ME ONE OF EVERY COLOR, MAYOR!
As the meeting wrapped up, people shared their fond–and not so fond–memories from the Fourth of July.
“I thought the holidays went real good, except all the fireworks really got the dogs upset,” Council Member Capps smiled wearily. “I, for one, got bit. It’s just the price we pay, I guess.”
While I admire his cavalier attitude in the face of, well, sharp teeth, someone else paid zero price for his canine encounter.
“I was able to be part of the pet judge contest,” bragged Council Member George Glover. “They had ‘wagging tail dog’ and ‘best sit-up dog,’ ‘best trick dog’….It was good to be part of that.”
To that, Council Member Melvin Kerr retorted, “I think I was the most popular councilman. I was handing out the ice cream!”
With a hearty laugh, the last meeting in the old City Hall was over. Onward to greener pastures!
Final thoughts: Seriously, I would like a shirt please.
This is an exciting new episode of the “Best Thing, Worst Thing” project. Usually, I storm into town, do some interviews, hear about the history, and package it together into a neat bundle for you. This time, we tag along with a few locals as they go about their day and get a more colorful listening experience.
For an explanation of the project, check out the page here. If you’re ready to hear a group of folks talk about the best thing about where they live and the worst thing about where they live, head over to the City Council Chronicles podcast to download the latest episode. Or you can play it below.
Episode 6: Colby, Kansas
Photo source: Google Street View
Colby is technically a city of 5,400 people in the northwest corner of Kansas–but it’s tempting to call this a “small town.” Agriculture is important here, but Colby also has a community college and medical center. In this episode, we tag along to a Rotary Club meeting, participate in a tornado drill, and try not to get blown away by some fierce wind. We hear from a librarian, a hospital executive, a newspaper publisher, a principal, a tax preparer, and a retired city employee.
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!
Folks, 2017 will be a year of uncertainty. Fear. Turmoil.
But all of that faded away when the mustachioed man in the camo-sleeve pullover strode to the Hutchinson city council microphone.
You could tell: he was here to Make Hutchinson Great Again.
“I’m sure you’ve all received my petition in the mail. I’m here to formally represent that petition,” he intoned with a deep, reassuring voice. All signs pointed to this guy having some major grievance with the city council–but honestly, I could listen to him narrate movie trailers all day. His voice was that soothing.
But I’m sorry, you were saying something about tyranny?
“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. And the government role is to protect our rights, not to find exceptions,” he murmured, like some sort of Ken Burns documentary.
He has two guns in those sleeves and 25 in the bunker.
“Your opinion is your theology, and any opinion contrary to the fact I set forth is contrary to our basis of governance. That is why I am requesting repeal of the tax for the support of the sports arena. We’d like to see the city council repeal all ordinances that are destructive of the life, liberty, property, and prosperity of the people of Hutchinson.”
There was a dramatic pause as the John Williams musical score in my head stopped playing.
“Thank you. We appreciate it,” Mayor Jon Daveline casually replied. Then, cheerfully, “next item, please!”
The city attorney leaned forward in his chair, giving the audience an exclusive view of the hyper-expressive sign language translator.
Love. Her.
“There was a bill passed by the Kansas legislature moving elections to the fall–and requiring an extension of your terms,” he announced. As a smirk spread across his lips, he added, “so let me be the first to thank you for your additional months of service!”
Everyone laughed, perhaps a bit TOO hard.
“This extends your terms from April of this year to January 2018,” he elaborated. “For those whose terms would have expired not in 2017 but in 2019, your terms are extended to 2020.”
Not everybody was elated.
“I mean, they [the voters] might want us out in April and we’re here for another eight months,” Councilmember Jade Piros de Caravalho observed with a mournful chuckle.
“So…the changing of the guard will not occur until WHEN?!” exclaimed the mayor half-jokingly.
At this point, Camo Sleeves jumped uninvited back up to the mic. Cue the music from Braveheart.
“The city does retain the right to stand up and say we will not comply with any law the state comes out with,” he urged them defiantly. “You do have that right. You don’t have to comply with their laws.”
Mayor Daveline shifted uncomfortably, no doubt realizing that the Civil War started over something similar to this. “We’re…gonna take the advice of our city attorney here–”
“The law is often the rule of tyrants,” Camo said firmly. “That’s just the way it is.”
The color had drained from the city attorney’s face. “Uh…the authority that a city has is granted to it by the state of Kansas. If they didn’t grant us the authority…we couldn’t exist.”
Final thoughts: It’s a tough call…they didn’t stand up to tyranny. But they did avoid an inter-governmental apocalypse. I give these council members 8 out of 10 camo-sleeve pullovers.
During this Labor Day weekend, it’s a good time to remember all of the people who labor hard every week at city council meetings for hours and hours–or, sometimes, for 19 minutes. Catch up on where City Council Chronicles visited in the month of August.
P.S. If you didn’t see our appearance in last week’s Baltimore Sun, don’t worry–my intern spends 23 hours every day reading each newspaper in the country to see who mentions The Chronicles. And he finally found one!
City Council Chronicles 