How to Watch a City Commission Meeting

Question
You make a big deal about most residents not paying much attention to what CITCOM does. You go further and say a lot of what CITCOM does doesn’t directly affect most residents. Does it follow that it doesn't matter who we elect?
 
Answer
Who sits at The Table certainly affects the tone of CITCOM meetings. Over decades, though, the great majority of commission decisions have been unanimous. Differences caused by individuals show up in the relatively small number of split votes.

The guidelines below remain useful as the bodies change.

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Individual commissioners (and, to a degree, the mayor*) display characteristics which bear watching:

1. Do they favor decisions which seek to control or decisions which seek to liberate -- people, policies, procedures, plans?

2. Do they permit their fondness or dislike toward a person or a city department or a concept to dominate their decision-making?

3 Do they regularly use nit-picnicking as a technique to win a point, to stall deliberations, to wear down their opposition, or to posture for the public?

Pay attention to when they reveal those characteristics, most often unintentionally. Is there a pattern to the types of issues which most interest them?  Bore them? Irritate them? Please them?

Try to predict how the vote will go on a given issue. If you can predict an individual's vote almost every time, that official is operating from feelings, not thought.

Sure, it's fun to join VersagiVoice in chiding this or that commissioner for talking too much or protesting too much or bullying or wandering or whining. That adds a personal dimension to the dialogues, and VersagiVoice readers tell us that including the human touch in our commission reports adds interest and understanding. But, focus on the issues as you watch the proceedings, whether those proceedings, at a given moment, take the form of quiet conversation or of lively debate. We're not talking here about whether an individual is, overall, likeable in a social setting. They are all at least likeable enough to have been elected.

*As chair of the meeting, a mayor can't initiate a motion and conventionally doesn’t take an active role during debate. (During the last half of 2011, Mayor Jim Ellison participated more, and more vigorously than during his previous seven years in office.)