My Growing Love and Hate of City Council Meetings
I am a City Council fan. I like going to the meetings, I like listening to the folks, and at the end of the day (is that my catch phrase?) I like everyone up there for the simple reason that they are leading. Yeah, some of them are not my favorites, but that is like trying to pick a favorite pizza topping. They are all good people, trying to lead the city they care about in the way they think works. Sure, the alliance or voting block is a bit upsetting, but so it goes. It is politics after all.
This post is not about them though. This post is about you, dear reader, dear commenter, dear complainer, dear curmudgeon. You who sit at home and complain that your taxes are too high, that the 400 block is a bad idea, that renaming Stewart Avenue or buying new pools is a waste of your tax dollars. You who complain that Mr. Dudley, both father and son got too much public funding to build the buildings that will end up being cornerstones of Wausau future. You who get on 550 AM morning show and accuse the Sustainable Wausau folks of being owned by the Concrete Lobby or Smart Growth weirdos from California. Heck, this post is even dedicated to Pat and Tom from that morning show.
My question is this… WHERE ARE YOU? I go to these meetings, and they open the floor to discussion, and NO ONE EVER TALKS. Last night was the big meeting, the budget meeting. Tipple, our mysteriously quiet Mayor, opened the floor to discussion about the budget…WHICH MEANS YOUR TAXES…and no one said anything at all. I think I saw a Councilman giggle when no one got up and said anything.
Someone once told me that if I do not vote, I am not allowed to truly complain. I am not a part of the process, so why should the process listen to me? I tend to think like that. We have these issues in front of us…the pools, the trees, the budget, and no one talks. There are like 25 people there who are there specifically to answer your questions, the department heads, the police and fire chief, the Mayor, the professional staff, all sitting right there, waiting to answer your question.
No question.
In America, I would think that the small town government is the last bastion of any sort of evidence of community in government. We have a chance to know where they live, to know they answer their phone, to know their email addresses, TO HAVE ACCESS to the process. We are not locked out. Wausau city government has apparently looked at the likes of Kronenwetter and the Merrill School District, and the criticism of McDevco, and they have seemingly gone the other way and made this government as transparent as they can.
I know we all want to find entertainment, culture, the PAF, and good hamburgers. But come on, citizenship in this country is something that is advanced. We live in a place and time where things are changing rapidly, and the only way we get the future we want is by raising our voices. It is only then, we can complain. Only then can we say we have been left out, only after we get involved. We can’t all be watching NASCAR everyday, and renting movies from Turner Classic movies thinking about a better time when cities were run through Ward Politics at the worst.
We live in a great city, in a great state, in a great country. But we need to see voices. When you have a chance to voice your opinion, then maybe you should. Maybe you should at least try. Maybe we should all try. Try to make the City Council meetings like free wing night at Buffalo Wild Wings, more like where the special people hang out for drinks at City Grill, or where we have breakfast at the Mint and decide what is really going on.
We live in a city so small; we know our neighbors and our neighborhood. We have a chance to make it direct and real, this contact with government. We should do that. We should show ourselves, our children, our friends, that we are willing to stand up for them and for ourselves.
We have a chance, in this time of great change, to build a city based on what is right and what we think will take us to the future.
“The Streets of Heaven are too crowded with Angels”
PS: I am including the Wausau Capital plan, which I am assuming is some sort of code for BUDGET. But, you make of it what you will. I thought it was significant enough that we wanted to have it here on Citizen Wausau, having Wausau in the title and all, it seemed to sort of be a natural match. Maybe you want to download it, print it up, take a look at it. From what I understand, its too late for you to do anything about it, but at least you have it now.
- The Wausau Capital Plan (PDF)
Marcus Nelson said:
Dino - Couldn’t we just grab the video from council meetings and turn them into podcasts or YouTube videos for the site? If we used Viddler for the video, we’d actually be able to insert our own commentary during the videos (ala popup video) That could be very interesting!
November 18th, 2007 at 9:51 pm #
Jim Rosenberg said:
Or maybe like Mystery Science Theater 3000? :)
November 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm #