fly at night

Everybody has an agenda. You want a raise, new car, or simply peace and quiet. How you get there is an agenda.

I established two items for my June 2006 campaign agenda. I kept it simple. First, I would ask questions that had not been asked. Before I ran for city council I noticed that a number of agenda items were being passed without any discussion whatsoever. How were we, the public, supposed to know what the city council members were thinking? I concluded that in order to get a discussion moving all I needed to do was to start asking questions. Name one politician that would allow another politician to make statements without a rebuttal. From that simple concept we now have five members of the city council providing input on most agenda items.

Second, I would help bring transparency back to the city Council. Transparency came to the city with the hiring of Rob Hill as City Administrator and Peter Talia as City Attorney. Both were new to their positions and neither is politically involved. No more nuance. No more splitting hairs as to what can and can’t be disclosed. The council even told the bargaining units, in public, how we wanted to negotiate this year.

These are two simple agenda items. I had some control over the first item and none over the second item. Asking questions is one thing to tell the public all the facts is quite another.

Quite honestly, I thought that this would be the extent of what I would accomplish in my four years on the council. Needless to say I was surprised at how the other council members responded. Credit has to be given to Lino Callegari for his leadership as mayor for either of these items to move forward.

That was my agenda. Any other accomplishment would be a bonus.