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.
On this week’s podcast, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos spends 30 hours learning about the podcast and its host. You can listen to the exposé on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:
On this episode, you will hear excerpts from these full interviews:
Plus, you can listen to a segment of “Tear It Down,” an eight-chapter audio series about a small town whose government became wildly dysfunctional when political insurgent group formed seeking revenge: www.tearitdownpodcast.com.
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Eva Murray is a first-term Labour councillor in Glasgow who seems to know all of the names of her 84 colleagues (no small feat!). She discusses the the cycle of partisan blame that emerges in the debates and how that can be frustrating for a new councillor. Plus, she explains why young people appear to take interest in attending the Glasgow meetings.
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Q: Am I reading correctly that you are one of 85 city councillors in Glasgow?
A: That’s absolutely correct.
Q: Wow, 85! Be honest with me, madam: do you know everybody’s name?
A: I think I do. I mean, two years on I hope I would. There’s still a few that I struggle with. We’ve got three Councillor Morgans. I still get them confused a little bit!
Q: I noticed something unusual that someone tweeted at you:
Excited to attend @GlasgowCC full council meeting today. Thanks a bunch to the amazing @EvaCMurray for getting me a ticket.
Do you need tickets to watch your council meetings? And follow-up: do you ever go on tour?
A: People can tune in online, but there’s a very limited amount of tickets to watch it from the gallery. You have to contact your local councillor and hopefully you can get them. You have to be quick. I think there’s only 12 to 14 spaces in the gallery. As for going on tour, that could be an interesting summer trip but at the moment, no. We could get some merchandise, put all the dates on the back, and just tour Scotland.
Q: Do I take it to mean that you have a full gallery most of the time if the tickets are in such demand?
A: We do most times, especially if there’s a controversial motion. Or some people have just never been to a council meeting. We’ve seen a lot of younger people take up the opportunity to come and watch.
Q: What is in the magic sauce of the Glasgow council that makes young people interested in showing up to watch? Is it the historic nature of the place? The topics you consider? Or with 85 councillors, everyone has a friend on city council and they’re showing up to support their buddies?
A: Maybe it’s a bit of everything. Two years ago was the first time 16-year-olds could vote in a council election. We’ve seen younger people become more involved in politics.
Glasgow, SCT Councillor Eva Murray
Q: Something that is noticeably different from most American and Canadian councils is the time in Glasgow’s council meetings dedicated to questions. Who decides which councillors get to question, and what is the purpose of asking those questions?
A: They’ve in the last couple of meetings changed how questions are done. Before it could genuinely take up a full meeting just full of questions. What they’ve done now is, say the Labour Party would put in six or seven questions. Four of them will get picked and the other three will get a written response. Some people use it to make noise about an ongoing issue, to take a hit at the leader of the council. Other people will use it to highlight a local issue. If you get a good hit on a question, you can make not just your local paper, but maybe the Glasgow citywide paper.
Q: A lot of what I hear in debates goes along the lines of “Labour did this five years ago.” “Well, the Tories did that 10 years ago.” “Oh, where was the SNP when this and that was happening?” It appears like you are settling a score. How much accuracy is there to that?
A: I think you’re right in that a lot of people like to play the blame game. It’s frustrating for me as someone who’s only in the city chambers two years–who wasn’t there when other decisions were made–and to have to take that. I’m trying my best to be the new generation of councillor, but you’re still tarred with the decisions made a long time ago.
Q: So you’re speaking to a culture where new councillors get saddled with their party’s baggage to the point that when they are the seasoned councillor, the expectation is that they will saddle new incoming councillors of the opposition party with the bad decisions of their predecessors?
A: Absolutely. You try and get away from that. People outside, like constituents, they’re willing to listen and see that you are the new face. But there’s a lot of people in the chamber—that is their rhetoric. If they can’t properly answer a question, they’ll say, “what did Labour do?” Or “what did the Tories do?”
Follow Councillor Eva Murray on Twitter: @EvaCMurray
Susan Rae is a brand new Green Party councilor in Edinburgh and she has a terrific sense of humor! The Edinburgh city council had a hiccup after no political party won a majority when the council convened in May–plus, no one wanted to form a coalition until after the surprise election the prime minister called for June. We talked about that sticky wicket, plus all of the traditions of her council.
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Q: Can you describe your council chamber?
A: It has beautiful stained glass windows and very old, very large desks. They have lids that open so you can hide everything in there. And large seats–I’m very tiny, only five foot tall. So my feet don’t actually touch the ground. They kind of swing!
Q: What do you hide in your desk?
A: I hide my cigarettes and my lighter and some biscuits in case I get hungry.
Q: The Lord Provost (a.k.a. mayor) makes a grand entrance every meeting: someone announces his arrival, everyone stands, and two other fancily-dressed people in white gloves follow him and put the mace into his high-backed chair. As an American, I’m thinking, there have got to be mayors over here who would LOVE their entrance announced with an entourage. Do you think it’s excessively formal?
A: I don’t feel it’s very necessary but there are traditional elements within the council that do like to keep the tradition of the mace and the sword. I’m very desiring of taking in a lightsaber one day. We [in the Green Party] all have our own! I would probably have to stash it in my desk.
Q: Well, yeah, you’d have to take out the cigarettes and the biscuits to fit it in there probably.
A: [Laughs] The traditional part has a place. It’s all on display, all of the silverware, the keys to the city–
Q: Wait, the keys to the city are just sitting out in the open in the chamber where anyone can take them?
A: We take them to Holyrood Palace and present them to the queen. Then she gives us them back and says, “you’re really good at looking after my city. Keep the keys!” So we did that recently.
Edinburgh, Scotland Councilor Susan Rae (and the keys to the city)
Q: Each of the parties has a section of the room where you all sit together. And generally if the Conservatives are all standing to vote, Labour will not be standing. Are you allowed to disagree with your party and be the only person to vote for something?
A: It depends on the party. Some parties have a whip system and you have to follow the whip’s instruction. We tend to agree on things or we vote with our conscience. Labour and SNP operate a whip system and the Conservatives always vote together.
Q: I don’t know what the penalty is…death, maybe, if you don’t vote with them?
A: I don’t think it’s death quite yet. But I think you can be suspended from the group or they don’t let you have biscuits in your desk.
Q: That’s a steep penalty indeed.
A: The role of a councilor is to look after the people in their ward. I would rather people voted for what the people in their constituency want, not for what their party want.
If you get your jollies from talk of storm water fees or filling potholes, take your filthy mind far away from Aspen. In this luxurious ski hamlet, the city council had only the highest, most sophisticated affairs of state to discuss.
“We have a relatively light schedule tonight–and a relatively light council,” Mayor Steve Skadron waved his hands toward the two lone council members seated to his side.
“[Council members] Adam [Frisch] and Art [Daily] are traveling,” chuckled the mayor, who was sporting the most fashionable head of hair this side of Fabio. Like a true Aspenite, “Adam is golfing in Scotland!”
But this city isn’t all golf junketing and Eurotripping. They also had a very unpopular parking rate increase. Tell ’em how unpopular it was, mayor:
“One of the things we’ve done is used revenue from the parking increase to pay for–” GOLDEN TOILETS IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS?!?! –“the Downtowner, which are the electric cars that are driving around.”
Christ, what kind of utopia is this? You, there–shorts-clad citizen waiting to address the council! Surely you must have a complaint about how this city is going to hell in a ski lift!
“I’ve used the Downtowner. It’s a great service,” bragged the bespectacled man. “My dogs really appreciate it.”
Mayor Skadron pumped his fist. “Thank you for being such a cool local!”
With hair like that, Mayor Steve Skadron is THE arbiter of cool.
Finally, midway through the meeting, there was some drama in paradise. A group of developers was seeking to add on to the Little Nell Hotel–and all three council members had to give the thumbs up. No abstentions. No nays.
All. Three.
“What we’ve tried to do is move away from a straight up solarium and create something that is more in line with the original architecture,” a cheerful young presenter explained.
The mayor swiveled to his right. “Ann, what do you think?”
“Well,” chuckled Council Member (and the local landscape architect) Ann Mullins, “it’s always difficult to add onto a building and have it blend in. This is an improvement over what you showed us originally–”
Would she? Wouldn’t she?!
“–but I don’t think it’s there yet….The amount of fenestration and especially the skylights, the glass ceiling, makes the addition somewhat cheap.”
There was a silence, presumably so people could look up the definition of “fenestration.”
Barf! You call that a solarium?! My dog has pooped better solaria than that!
“Since there are three of us and it has to be unanimous, you get to have what you asked for,” Council Member Bert Myrin smiled nervously. “It’s okay. I’m comfortable with that.” He sounded anything but comfortable.
Turning to the lone objector, he sighed. “It’s entirely up to you.”
The tension was as thick as a Rocky Mountain blizzard. The developers huddled, frantically searching for a way to appease the Ski Queen.
Finally, they offered that the ordinance could make their building “replicate existing ground floor or second floor window pattern.”
All eyes turned to Mullins.
Council Member Ann Mullins: the most powerful woman in the Rockies
“Okay,” she caved.
The vote was taken. Everyone was a yes. The developers were all smiles as the meeting graveled to a close.
Final thoughts: For driving a hard bargain, I give Council Member Ann Mullins 10 out of 10 Scottish golfing passes.
On this episode, you will hear excerpts from these full interviews:
City Council Chronicles 