Mayor Rob Marlowe
This coming Saturday will feature the very first “A Walk in the Park with City Council“. It will be from 8am until 10am on Saturday, May 30th, at the James Grey Preserve.
The Preserve is on Plathe Road. The easiest way to get to it is by taking Louisiana Avenue east until it dead ends and then following the signs. You an also take Plathe west from Rowan. Either way, take care on Plathe as it is not paved.
After you get there, you will understand why the city is planning on paving Plathe!
There will be food (breakfast) and T-shirts for the first 100 folks to show up.
I hope you will join me there.
This is actually a great opportunity to talk with council members about city issues. No appointments necessary.
We have a “Vox Pop” period early in each coucil meeting’s agenda. Vox Pop gives citizens the opportunity to address council on whatever is on their mind, but not on the agenda. The good news is that you can bring up any issue that you want the council to look at. The bad news is that there is a 3 minute time limit and the council won’t get into a discussion with you during Vox Pop. I know it drives people nuts when we just sit there and don’t comment, but it is not the proper time. One or more of us WILL frequently bring up an issue that was presented during Vox Pop when we get to the “Communications and Reports” section at the very end of the meeting. Most often, we request staff to investigate whatever the issue is and bring back more information.
I also ask for public comment on various issues and proposed ordinances after they are presented by staff. Once public comment is closed and the issue brought back to council for discussion, procedural rules make it impossible to receive additional public comments. The process is somewhat formal, but necessary for us to be able to move the meeting along.
I believe I can safely say that every single member of the city council will make themselves available to meet with a citizen who has a question or concern. People have learned that they can drop by my business to chat and I take any call that comes in when someone says they want to talk about a city issue. It is part of my job and my colleagues on council feel the same way when you contact them.
What makes this coming Saturday special is that you will get the opportunity to talk one on one to multiple members of the council without having to track each of us down individually. While we can’t talk to each other about city matters and can’t make decisions outside of a council meeting, we CAN talk to you.
Even if you don’t have a burning issue you want to bring up, I hope you will join us Saturday and enjoy one of the most beautiful parks anywhere on the west coast of Florida.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
A link to my article on the event in case anyone needs additional informational links:
http://newsportrichey.org/2015/05/20/grey-preserve-a-walk-in-the-park-with-city-council-may-30th/
Also, don’t forget to check out our Community Events Calendar which parses information from the City and other organizations:
http://newsportrichey.org/community-events-calendar/
Last, can’t we move Vox Pop to the end of each topic? It’d be much more helpful if we could listen to Council weigh in and then talk about the issue rather than citizens going first, then moving on to voting after Vox Pop ends. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have all the info before you guys and staff talk about it.
Jon,
Leaving public comment to after the council members debate an issue would sort of defeat the whole purpose of asking for public comment before council members go on the record stating a position.
With major actions, eg. the passage of ordinances, there are at least two opportunities for public comment during the meetings, once at the first reading and again at the second reading. More importantly, there is a time gap between those two readings where citizens can contact council members and express their opinions with no three minute time limit.
We had a workshop on a proposed parking ordinance several months ago. Based on the public comments that were made before we started the council discussion, we tossed the proposal back to staff with instructions to “try again”.
A much more limited parking ordinance came before council last week. Members of the audience spoke in opposition to the proposal, with some fairly off the wall assertions being made in the process (eg. claiming problems with stuff what wasn’t even in the proposed ordinance). The council voted 4-1 to approve the ordinance on first reading.
I received a series of well thought out emails later in the week from one of those in attendance, pointing out in some detail specific examples of why the ordinance as passed on first reading was flawed. He obviously spent more than three minutes composing his emails and I spent something on the order of 45 minutes to an hour working through the points he raised. Some of those points were quite good and I’ll push for some changes to the ordinance on second reading as a result of our email dialogue.
While the public comment received before council discusses an issue is valuable, the best way to influence the process is to contact council members directly before the meeting even starts. That is why I’m encouraging everyone who can to attend this Saturday’s event. It is an opportunity to chat informally with members of the city council on whatever issues might be of interest.
Rob