Short Council Meeting
Staff editorial

With little of interest on the agenda, the March 5 city council meeting ended at 7:20 p.m. Few people attended, but those who stayed to the end learned that Councilman John Paul Ledesma and his wife are expecting their first child in October.

Noticeably absent at the meeting was anyone from Councilman Frank Ury’s dwindling fan club. For the first time in years, no one launched a gratuitous personal attack from the public microphone.

One public speaker asked when the city will address problems of a neighborhood impacted by traffic from Newhart Middle School. The blog regretfully informs the public that the November election is over, and a remedy won’t likely be discussed again until the next campaign season in 2008. The speaker referred to a petition signed by neighbors, and she said residents have been asking the city’s help for four years. After the council ignored their requests for four years, did residents wanting change vote for incumbents in the November 2006 election?

Another resident making public comments suggested converting the Potocki Center to an art center. He suggested a business-minded group of interested citizens should explore the idea.

No member of the public pulled any agenda item for discussion, and only Councilwoman Gail Reavis wanted to talk about a proposed “goal-setting” workshop before the council voted on it. The proposed workshop ($39,000) and related activities ($15,000) passed 4-1 with Reavis dissenting after saying the council wasn’t ready for such a workshop.

Anyone observing city politics during the past several years has probably noticed the council doesn’t need $54,000 worth of help to set goals. Ury made clear in 2006 his goal was to knock three incumbents (Trish Kelley, Lance MacLean and John Paul Ledesma) out of office. Ledesma made a sizeable donation to Ury’s opponent in the 2004 city race in an effort to prevent Ury from getting on the council. Ury has numerous times implied from the dais he would act nicer if Ms. Kelley would act smarter, and Kelley and Reavis have for years regaled viewers with catfights during meetings.

The pricey goal-setting workshop was also described as group leadership development. All five council members proclaimed during their campaigns that they were already proven leaders. Not only do they lack leadership skills, they have exhibited no desire to work as a team except when conspiring against each other. Entire neighborhoods have learned this council has little interest in addressing community problems or protecting residents’ quality of life. Why waste city tax dollars on training, particularly when these council members failed to learn from previous similar workshops?

As an example of the council’s problems, MacLean during the March 5 meeting essentially asked the city attorney if the mayor can be stripped of her title before her turn ends December 31. The city attorney said the other council members voted to give her a turn as mayor, and they can vote to end her turn at any time.

A report about the high number of vehicles being stolen while parked at the mall received little attention during the meeting. After the city manager said the report had been written as a result of a council request, no one from the public commented, no council member commented and no one had any question. The topic of auto thefts came to the council’s attention when residents asked why the public hadn’t been informed of the thefts. Because no council member asked, viewers of the March 5 meeting didn’t learn if the report addressed the original question of why the rash of thefts wasn’t reported in newspapers. The city manager talked about the report, saying anyone could look up information about crime by accessing the Internet, but he didn’t address the question.