Meeting In Review : A City Council Meeting In Review

On Monday, April 13th, 2009, I visited the Culver City city council meeting, and found that they operate using a council-manager form of government. For a city with a population of about 38,000, this type of governmental structure is fairly common, and I was not surprised to see it in action in a community where the median household income is around $56,000 a year. Culver City is also a culturally rich community with a 60 percent Caucasian population, and a quarter of the residents are either of African American or Asian decent. The mayor, D. Scott Malsin, is one of five members on the council, and his term as mayor is on a rotating basis. Having been to a Hermosa Beach city council meeting with a similar council-manager structure, I knew

Though I didn’t complete my six hours, I suppose, the three hours I did had enough information and influence on my thoughts that I believe pointed me in the direction the assignment was made to. I went to a city council meeting, a few days ago, for this project, and I was lucky enough to go at a time where the council was over seeing some rather important decisions that I seemed to have a lot of personal opinion on. To try to answer the questions that this write up is made to answer, I learned that the council discusses and debates new bill and local measures that affect the town and community of the Fort Bragg area. I was lucky to get into a very interesting topic of creating a Sanctuary City within Fort Bragg, thus creating a new Haven

The members on the board of supervisors and planning commission, all seemed to be in agreement with each other on most matters. On the other hand, I noticed great deal of discord amongst the Gulfport City Council members, particularly between Councilwoman Ella Holmes-Hines and Councilman F.B. ‘Rusty’ Walker, IV. They both voiced disparities regarding the pay rate amongst police officers and firefighters. Although they did disagree, at the end of the meeting, Councilman F.B. ‘Rusty’ Walker, IV, did clarify that even though they disagree, they collectively think of themselves as a team; this showed great strength and maturity to

Of course, during meetings, many questions are sure to arise about the same factors. Most people want know what will be done on roadway conditions, what will be done about the cleaning of the parks, etc. One of the biggest, and very surprising, issues brought up recently by the Common Council is a chicken ordinance for Warsaw. In a unanimous vote, the Warsaw Planning Commission has given their approval to allow chickens within the city limits. However, the Council voted “no” on the ordinance that, if passed, would have allowed a select number of residents to raise and maintain chickens on their property inside the city

The city council of Atlanta, Georgia servers as a local legislative government branch. The council is made of the president, Ceasar Mitchell and fifteen members elected from district within the city. The city of Atlanta is broken up into twelve different districts and three post, each councilmen is responsible for representing the needs and wants for their district. The members of the council are elected by the citizens, and they work together to pass laws, make general policies, supervise city government, and appropriate funds for various needs. Usually, council meetings are open to the public, and public input is welcomed. The majority the councils work is done in committees. In the committees proposed legislation is debated and the members of other government branches and the public are given a chance to comment. Each council member serves on at least three of the council's standing committees, and select committees and panels. This week the author had the chance to attend a City of Atlanta council committee meeting and view how the meeting was conducted and went.

Throughout the entire course, the professor made sure to emphasize the importance of political action, and I was clearly able to see the power of being politically active through this event. Although we could have waited to elect new representatives into congress, we decided to instead go down to the capitol and made sure our voices and presence got heard because not having a budget is simply not a problem that can wait much longer. As was discussed in class, lobbying is an example of a pressure strategy that has proven to be quite successful in the past; therefore, it was no surprise to see why the U of I students and faculty have decided to use this specific

After a final swig of Bacardi a figure stumbles down an empty street in a drunken stupor. He settles down on the steps of the infamous Mckell housing commission in Redfern just two blocks from Sydney’s Central Station. His name is Tyson, he is 13 years old.

The experience going to the council meeting was great and I would imagine that the items on the agenda had a great deal to do with that. The topics I found the most interesting revolved around public nudity, serving alcohol in public, spending grant money, a gun ordinance, and polling the public about being taxed. The agenda item revolving around public nudity took up most of the time. Currently, Eureka doesn't have a ordinance in place to give police authority to arrest citizens who are nude in public when it isn't a sexual act. The chief of police gave example of a person doing Tai Chi in a public park nude. The police were called and couldn't do anything short of asking him to put his clothes on. There was concern among a few council members

On September 9, 2014 I attended the Glendale City Council meeting which was held at the Council Chamber which is located on the 2nd floor of the Glendale City Hall, Room 200, 613 East Broadway, Glendale, California. The meeting commenced at 6 p.m. and lasted for approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes. Several policy proposals were made and discussed in this particular meeting. This paper is aimed at discussing the various policy proposals made and debated at this meeting with a view to establishing whether they are acceptable or unacceptable to the Glendale electorate. It is, however, essential to provide a brief background of the City of Glendale before embarking on a discussion of policy proposals.

Following the portion of the meeting where the public could bring things to the table, the Council continued with its agenda. Multiple departments came and gave reports on what they were doing and their progress. Including

The Board then voted on a motion to appoint and all were approved and all public hearing items were approved with one public speaker who politely stated his point of view as the Board listened. The BOCC voted on a number of construction projects. One project consisting of a very large development near Sawgrass Mills Mall, and after a length discussion by the Board and a public speaker, the item was approved. There were motion to award for contracts such as agriculture and lawn equipment, for Parks and Recreation Division. This items was also approved. The Housing Finance and Community Redevelopment Division had a motion to adopt a financing plan, and a couple First Amendment to Loan Agreements that were all approved. The Aviation Department had withdrawn six (6) items for further review by staff with two (2) of these items pertaining to the relocation of the employee parking and the new technology involved in this move. BOCC had a short discussion on item 56 regarding Human Services Department and child care with the item being

The president introduced us to everyone including the members of the phone conference. They all went around and introduced their selves and spoke a little about their title and what they do. I introduced myself and they asked a few questions about my nursing interests and when I would be graduating. They reminisced about when they graduated and took the NCLEX, and spoke about how the field of nursing has so many opportunities. They also spoke about how a lot of people have the wrong idea about what long term care is, and emphasized that long term care encompasses many distinct levels of acuity and facility types. During the meeting, they were informative and explained a lot so that we knew what they were talking about as far as quality improvement initiatives and revisions to certain

The council either interrogates the police commanders on why the department has not fixed all their issues yet, or Carcetti tries to work out his own plans after the meeting is over. The interrogation of the police commanders at city council meetings creates a trickle-down effect to the police where Rawls and Burrell then go and question all the mid-level officers on why nothing is getting fixed. Sometimes they take drastic measures such as changing systems they have been using forever, like in season three episode five, or even firing someone for not constructing a great enough amount of change. The conflict between the police department and the politicians turning into pressure and conflict within the police department becomes a detriment to the department and the city’s safety because the more the police fight with each other, the less police work gets done, which leads to more crime and in turn Baltimore is a less safe

I chose to attend a city council meeting for this assignment and was very surprised at what I witnessed. The city council served an important purpose and the meeting actually accomplished many important goals. Among the interesting things that I saw at the council meeting were the people who attended, the people who presented, the people who sat on the council, and the subjects that were being voted upon in the meeting.

The meeting continued with the Joint Consent Calendar, the consent calendar is a grouping of routine matters to be acted on in one motion. There were six items considered and recommended actions taken anywhere from issues related to utilities to professional services. At the end of this presentation it was open to public hearing providing any concerned resident an opportunity to speak. This was followed by consent ordinances which city staff members began to speak about Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and its draft citizen participation plan for years 2015-2019. This was followed by an ordinance for the Civic Plaza which would limit the use of skateboards, bicycles, and leashed animals during special events held at this location. Following these issues the council would make a decision which would be placed on record for public view. New business was proposed where an approval of long ranged property management was projected, but they motioned to push this event forward to the next meeting due to the absence of a council member who was more familiar with the issue.