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.
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.
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.
Normally when a city council meeting is described as “lively,” that means everything is spinning out of control. But at Salisbury City Hall, the only “stuff” hitting the fan was sugar, spice, and everything nice.
As citizens milled about and staff hustled to put the finishing touches in place, a lone man planted himself in front of Councilman R. Hardy Rudasill’s face and pointed a cell phone.
“Are we rolling?” Councilman Rudasill asked, staring into the camera. “I love Salisbury because there’s no better place to live. It’s easy to get to work and it’s easy to get to the bars. You gotta love it!”
Rudasill let out a hearty guffaw and gave a high five to Mayor Jacob Day. Look for him on a YouTube, Snapchat, or Instagram account near you.
Get a room, you two.
“Before we get started,” warned Council President Jack Heath, “I’d like you to please silence any electronic devices that will make noise.”
He paused. “Kids are cool. I know there’s no buttons to do that.” The room exploded in laughter.
Unfortunately, those aforemntioned kids didn’t seem quite so “cool” when an infant began bawling during a church deacon’s opening invocation.
“Dear heavenly Father, we’re so thankful–”
Waaaah!
“–for our mayor and our council–”
Waaah!”
“–and the people here who love Salisbury so much, Lord,” he finished with a hint of exasperation.
But still, the energy in the room was through the roof. As the council rolled through various mundane items–honoring a nonprofit foundation, hearing from the youth advisory committee, purchasing some property–each was punctuated by sustained applause from the audience.
Their enthusiasm seemed to bewilder Council President Heath. “It’s a good night!” he observed incredulously.
Then it was time for the big-ticket item. The elephant in the room. The bull in a china shop.
The Salisbury Arts & Entertainment District.
“I ask that you keep your comments to three minutes, four minutes,” Heath admonished the public. He would bring down the hammer on any filibusterers–unlike his laissez-faire attitude toward crying babies.
“As you can see, if you go over your time, I have plenty of things to throw.”
A woman in a bright yellow sweater popped up to the podium. “Forty-five seconds max,” she predicted.
“Oh, no–” Heath protested, but she had already begun.
“I am here tonight because we [my family] are not ‘from-heres,’ we are ‘come-heres.’ We were a family that was looking for a way to belong to this community, and the Arts & Entertainment District gave us that.”
I’ll be damned. It was exactly 45 seconds.
The next commenter took the long way to the podium, conspicuously waving at Mayor Day. The mayor glanced up from his computer.
“Hey, dad.”
“This is Jake’s OTHER dad,” the council president quipped. Everyone laughed at the apparently-inside joke.
“I’m a lot older than him, even though I don’t look it,” Papa Day shot back to more chuckles.
After Day’s testimony, the council voted in favor of the Arts & Entertainment District. A giant cheer went up–and just as quickly, people rushed for the exits.
“Don’t leave us!” Councilman Rudasill and Councilwoman April Jackson pleaded.
“You didn’t read the small print that says you have to stay till the end!” Council President Heath called out.
But alas, they were gone.
This is the opposite of an Irish Goodbye.
Final thoughts: I give 10 out of 10 stars to the Salisbury Arts & Entertainment District for being so dang popular.
This is exciting: Kelly Elliott is the first Canadian councilor on the podcast! You probably know her as the co-founder of “I Love Thorndale” and a player in the “Girls With Balls” hockey league. But did you know she was embroiled in a dust-up over so-called illegal council meetings?! (Also, Thames Centre council meetings need more viewers, stat!)
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Q: There’s something we’ve gotta talk about: Thames Centre is a municipality. Here in the U.S., “municipality” usually means city or town. In a few states, they’ve got boroughs or townships, but those states are weird and frankly they should be kicked out of this country. What is the “Municipality of Thames Centre?”
A: The municipality was actually two townships that amalgamated in 2001. Our municipality is mostly rural areas. We have two villages and a handful of little hamlets.
Q: What would it take for you to become a city?
A: I don’t know what the full step is!
Q: Well, I called up my boys at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for Ontario. It turns out, municipalities can decide what to call themselves. If you wanted to start being the “City of Thames Centre,” you just have to change your stationery and business cards!
A: We’re nice rural country folk. We don’t want to be known as “city!”
Q: I noticed that the mayor wears a very ornate necklace. What is that thing and what kind of powers does it give him?
The mayoral necklace
A: It doesn’t give him much more powers. The mayor has exactly the same weight of vote as anyone else on council. He just leads the meeting and keeps everyone in line.
Q: In October 2016, the deputy mayor said that some councilors were holding “illegal meetings.” Apparently, one day after a council meeting, Councilor Alison Warwick, Councilor Jennifer Coghlin, and you were sitting in the chamber talking about your son who was in the hospital for a head injury. Is that where this misunderstanding came from?
Thames Centre, ON Councilor Kelly Elliott
A: That’s right. Having three of us together is quorum. So without a clerk, that would make it an illegal meeting IF we were discussing or furthering the business of the municipality. Of course, we weren’t doing that. But the deputy mayor had thought we were possibly discussing municipal issues.
Q: Did he come over and ask what you were talking about?
A: Probably a great thing would’ve been to come chat with us and he would’ve seen what we were discussing! But we just had a meeting on Monday–everyone was getting along.
Q: Do people show up at the council meetings to give you a hard time?
A: I wish we had more people like that! Our gallery is pretty bare for the majority of meetings. Not many people come just to watch us.
Q: So you would be okay with people showing up to criticize you because that means at least they’re showing up?
A: At least they’re coming, at least they’re caring what we’re talking about. When we see empty galleries, it makes you feel like you’re not doing anything important.
Q: Well, this is Canada, so you’re not doing anything important–
A: Oh, that’s rough.
Q: I’m kidding! I might need to be a refugee there in a couple of months….
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.
If anyone recognizes this man, please tell me what his shirt loves.
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?!
This man is contemplating how quickly he can bolt for the exit.
“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.
Gentlemen, aren’t our animals regulated ENOUGH?!
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.
For two decades, Lee Feldman has been a city manager all around the Florida coast. Currently he is the big cheese in Fort Lauderdale, which has its share of commission meeting drama. We talked about Florida’s causal meeting attire and what council members may really be doing when they’re not looking at public commenters.
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Q: You are the city manager of Fort Lauderdale. So, sir, my first question is: how many wet t-shirt contests have you judged?
A: None. Actually, Spring Break–as you may think of–has long gone from Fort Lauderdale. Back in the ’80s, the city fathers felt that Spring Break had gotten a little out of control. They wanted to see the beach evolve to something different, so Spring Break ultimately moved away.
Q: Can you think of anything you’ve done as Fort Lauderdale’s city manager that you think no other city manager in the country might have done?
A: Well, I’ll tell you one. In Florida when you have a quasi-judicial item, you have to be sworn in to give testimony. Our previous process gave you an orange sticker to indicate you were sworn in. I encouraged the clerk to replace that sticker with a sticker that says “I Love Fort Lauderdale.” I’m not sure anybody else in the country has done that.
Q: [Laughs] Yeah, I wouldn’t expect Reno to have stickers that say “I Love Fort Lauderdale!” I noticed in your city commission meetings that some public commenters wear t-shirts, shorts, and baseball caps. Do you find that a little too casual?
A: Over the last 30 years, I’ve seen a general relaxation of meetings. You’ve probably seen some council members that wear t-shirts and ball caps and shorts–
Q: Not yet!
A: You’ll probably find a few, especially in the retirement-oriented communities.
Fort Lauderdale, FL City Manager Lee Feldman
Q: When you were in Palm Bay, there was a contentious city council meeting over the city’s contract with firefighters. Some of them stood up and said, you don’t care about us. Or, cut your pay. What do you want to say to them?
A: We value the work and effort of every employee. Everybody contributes differently. I remember around that time, these anonymous blogs started showing up and somebody blogged that I had gotten a huge raise, which was not the truth. I got a call from my mom–she was yelling at me about “how dare you take a raise when you’re telling others that they need to have changes?”
Q: Some people express concern in public comment that the Fort Lauderdale commissioners aren’t listening to people. I’ve got to say, from watching a few meetings, that seems largely correct.
A: I think our commissioners get a bad rap…we have electronic agendas now. All of our commissioners and myself use our iPads. As people are speaking and referencing things, we will be looking down at the iPad to see what they are talking about.
Q: How can public commenters get your attention and most effectively make their case?
A: The best way to make a case is to know the issue, be able to state the facts, and it’s okay to even get emotional. I’ve seen speakers tear up because the item means so much to them. But the most effective way is to remain civil.
City Council Chronicles 