Wow, what a new beginning for democracy in a young city of more than 200,000. The people got more involved with their government through oral communications. Meetings often had more than a dozen people addressing the council weekly. Everyone was having five minutes of fame by addressing their councilmen and women in living color. Often, because of the number of public speakers, the council meetings never finished until after 11 p.m. or midnight.
What was really great was that the time the public spoke was early in the evening. Oral communications was a hallmark of which the city could be proud. The whole family could go to City Hall and see democracy in action, and be back home in bed before 9 p.m. Time to get ready for school or work.
And 2007 will also be remembered as the year democracy went to sleep and the public didn’t say a word. The new mayor, John Drayman, put oral communications at the end of the meeting. He was in his right, but was he right?
Moving oral communications to the end of the evening upset a few people at the time, but as the weeks, months and year went by, fewer and fewer speakers spoke during oral communications.
Only the hard-core stayed the course to speak on an issue that really bothered them, because of the lateness of the evening. The voters who had to get up early in the morning to go to work or get the kids in bed left Council Chambers before oral communications would start. Generally, only the voters who had a hot issue and the council critics stayed the course to closing time.
The people’s house became the house of the mayor, council members, staff and special interests. The public be damned, said the mayor as he made sure that the council critics ended up speaking to an empty audience and the TV audience would already be calling it a night. The prime time council participation would not be for the general public, but the mayor and whatever he wished.
