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!
There’s an old saying in the Midwest: the only thing more unpredictable than the waters of the mighty Mississippi River are the Cape Girardeau city council meetings.
More than a dozen onlookers chatted breezily, flipping through agenda packets. A dog yipped from somewhere in the back row as the meeting was gaveled to order. The dais was light two council members–Bob Fox and Wayne Bowen left empty chairs and broken hearts in their absence.
But the time for mourning faded quickly, as city manager Scott Meyer whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a tale of heroism and intrigue.
“We had one nice story about something our employees do all the time: going the second mile,” he bragged to the audience. “We recently had a firefighter who, in taking care of a trucker who had to be taken by ambulance [and] was really concerned about his truck….He took it upon himself to go the second mile and to take care of that truck and get it safe and secured.”
Council members leaned forward eagerly as Meyer proudly added, “and that’s just something your friends and neighbors do every day.” Yes, every day the streets are chock full of abandoned–but well taken care of–trucks.
Then without warning, the city manager veered off script.
“One more announcement. Julia’s gonna make that for me,” he smirked.
Council members swiveled their heads quizzically toward the podium. I don’t like the looks of this. How bad is the news that he had to outsource it?!
“Thank you, Scott,” smiled Julia. “It’s my distinct pleasure and honor to announce that our mayor, Harry Rediger, was accepted as the Outstanding Public Official for this past year!”
Cheers and whistles exploded in the chamber. The dog howled. Mayor Rediger sheepishly flipped through his packet.
“I didn’t see that on the agenda,” he quipped.
“No! We were trying to keep it a surprise,” exclaimed Julia.
The mayor flashed a big grin.”Well, you did!”
Who says there are no secrets in small towns! In fact, I bet those two missing council members were about to spill the beans–until Julia took care of them. (Permanently.)
Julia advised His Honor to mark the ceremony on his calendar. “At our conference in Branson on March 9, we’re hoping you’ll be able to make it.”
The city manager lurched in his chair. “March 9?! That’s the night of a strategic plan meeting.” He feigned begrudging acceptance and clapped a hand on the mayor’s shoulder. “But you can miss ONE.”
Mayor Rediger was still a wee bit embarrassed from all the attention. “I told ’em I was gonna go to every one of them!” he said apologetically to the city manager. Then he turned to Julia.
“I can make that.”
After all that excitement, the meeting moved swiftly and uneventfully to a close. Even the chicken ordinance, which normally would get my feathers ruffled, failed to take flight.
Final thoughts: For being able to pull off a surprise, I give Julia and the city manager 10 out of 10 strippers-jumping-out-of-cakes.
It’s a tumultuous time, so it is important to get involved locally. We at the Chronicles are doing our part with the “Best Thing, Worst Thing” project! For an explanation, check out the page here. If you like storytelling and municipal lore, I think you will enjoy hearing residents wrestle with the good and challenging parts of their city at the same time.
So get comfortable, imagine you’ve been teleported to the Midwest, and head over to the City Council Chronicles podcast to download the latest episode. Or you can play it below.
Photo source: City of Raymore
Raymore is 25 miles south of Kansas City in Cass County, Missouri. The population is 20,000. It is largely a bedroom community for people working in the big city or in nearby Kansas. For a long time, Raymore was stagnant–hovering around 500 residents. But starting in the ’70s, the city grew up fast. It is largely white with a higher-than-average median income, and along the main highway are numerous retail and big box stores. Raymore also has had some interesting political twists and turns. In this episode, we hear from a librarian, a marketing analyst, a doctor, and a husband-and-wife pair that runs a newspaper.
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?
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
There are two truly wonderful experiences in life: holding your newborn child for the first time and watching a city council meeting’s intro video.
No offense to my three–or is it four?–children, but after viewing this patriotic opener, I was crying so hard that I would have gladly let Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross lead me into battle against any other city council:
His Honor moved swiftly through the People’s Business. “We have a public hearing on the 2016-2017 budget,” he read, glancing up to deliver his own saucy editorial. “I might add that the city of Blue Springs– unlike the FEDERAL government–we operate on a BALANCED budget. We don’t have a money printing machine.”
Kapow! Sucker punch right in the Congress! Although he’s awfully quick to deny having a money printing machine considering no one brought it up….
“That being said, we’ll go to the public. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak in support OF the budget? In support OF?” No one stood UP. Stood UP.
“In opposition TO? In opposition TO? We’ll close this public hearing.”
Mayor Ross lowered his head and gazed steely-eyed around the dais. “That brings to mayoral announcements. I will continue to talk about being sick and tired of all the murders that are taking place. ESPECIALLY with children being killed.”
The room was silent.
“The the nonsense of [driving while] intoxicated is just like taking a gun and shooting somebody because you’re dealing with something much worse. A vehicle that weighs thousands of pounds and you have no control over it! And the innocent people, that they end up dying. Especially with children. So those are the announcements.”
Wow, I don’t know which is tougher: following this announcement or the fact that this is the first anti-drunk driving PSA I’ve seen in 49 city council meetings.
Luckily, His Honor took it upon himself to lighten the mood. “Now, Thoughts to Ponder.”
He leaned back and twirled his note card.
“Thoughts to Ponder tonight comes from a voicemail on my phone yesterday. It was kind of a confession, of sort. He said over the last 50 years, he’s had a problem with 80-year-old drivers…or their lack of being able to drive well.” Every eye was on the mayor, wondering what kind of ageist tirade was in store.
“But in March, HE turned 80, and his whole attitude changed about those ‘terrible’ 80-year-old drivers. They’re not such bad drivers after all. It’s really interesting when we have opinions about things or people until the shoe is on YOUR foot. Then we have a tendency to change our attitudes about it.”
By now, everyone in the room was smiling. Including me–I never thought I’d find so much wisdom in Western Missouri, of all places.
“That concludes our Thoughts to Ponder.”
Final thoughts: “Thoughts to Ponder” is my new favorite city council segment. Granted, the bar was super low to begin with, but I think the world would be a lot better if more mayors interpreted their voicemail on camera.
“Size doesn’t matter” was the motto of this week’s Raymore city council meeting. Looking around the chamber, you’d think an F5 had blown away half the council: four people were AWOL, including the mayor.
President Pro Tem Derek Moorhead, himself anything but small, soldiered ahead for the 20,000 souls in Ray-town (not its real nickname). “I have a wonderful proclamation for a wonderful cause: the Missouri Retired Teachers Association,” he boomed, towering over the white-haired woman who came to accept the award.
Can I keep it, she asked after he was done reading.
“That’s yours, absolutely!” President Moorhead exclaimed.
Not only was the council a few hands short, the city manager was without his deputy. “She is, as you all know, in Las Vegas with the economic development team and the mayor,” he sighed. “She sent me a picture this afternoon.”
How do you like them apples! She and the mayor are taking selfies with Celine Dion, while everyone else is stuck here talking about…mudjacking?
“We’ve spent just a little over $40,000 for the mudjacker this year,” a staff member told the council. “So right now we have achieved break even.” Three council members applauded vigorously–less for the jacking of mud and more for the saving of dough.
Cost comparison? Repairs w/ City’s new mud jacker = $1K so far. Contractors would’ve charged $40K for the same work. pic.twitter.com/mzaR0iwmPk
— City of Raymore Gov (@CityOfRaymoreMO) May 24, 2016
More good news: “Next Monday, May 30, there is no council meeting because it is Memorial Day,” the city manager huzzahed. “I believe it will be the first Monday in five months that you all will have off.” (Well, technically the first Monday those five council members who AREN’T playing craps in Sin City have off.)
Then, a huge piece of news. Groundbreaking. Earth shattering.
“An ordinance,” the clerk read, “authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Kansas City Audiovisual for the purchase and installation of a council chambers video system.”
HALLELUJAH, I screamed through my monitor. In case you haven’t noticed, the cameras the city council is apparently borrowing from the middle school AV department aren’t “showing me” much in the Show-Me State. Everyone voted aye.
Before long, this cozy council meeting was all wrapped up. President Moorhead had a few heartfelt words in parting. “Having a father as a teacher, I have to say that I don’t even know why we call them ‘retired’ teachers…they’re just teachers with no class in session,” he rhapsodized like a modern-day Langston Hughes.
“I remember [former] Mayor [Pete] Kerckhoff always used to mention the weather and the farmers market. I believe the farmers market officially opens on June 7–”
“June 14!” someone called out.
“June 14,” the president pro tem recovered. “I can’t predict the weather, though. Good luck on that. Hope it doesn’t rain.”
With a shrug, the council eagerly adjourned to enjoy a nice quiet holiday–except for the mayor, who will be doing body shots in the presidential suite of the Bellagio.
Final thoughts: For being the only council so far to upgrade their video quality, I give this meeting the Full Siskel and Ebert: 2 out of 2 thumbs-up!
City Council Chronicles 