Busting Myths
On this episode of Myth Busters, I’d like to debunk a recent post one of my colleagues published following the passage of Legislative Item 22-79, which passed 5-1 at the 7/19 regularly scheduled Council meeting. This legislation prevents individual Council members from adding items to the Consent or Legislative agenda unless agreed upon by 4 members at a workshop.
Myth: “Under previous council presidents, the president held a "closed door" meeting where the agenda was finalized. While we can never prove it, I'm sure there was horse-trading that went on because we could see the result...” (See screenshot - hi-lighted section)
Myth Busted: See attached screenshot of an email sent out by former Clerk of Council Elizabeth Slagle. Not only were these meetings NOT “closed door” meetings, every single member of Council and the Mayor were, at a minimum, able to listen in. We had a rotating schedule of members who could actively participate, and as always, members were encouraged to email or call the Council President or City Manager with questions, concerns, or ideas on how to approve the agenda. In my experience, these concerns expressed outside of the agenda planning meeting were taken very seriously.
If some of my colleagues on Council continue to outright state malicious falsehoods like this, while simultaneously continuing to state that “That’s the fact Jack!” when it very clearly is not fact in any way, don’t you start to wonder about the rest of their “facts?”
I do.
Which brings me back to Legislative Item 22-79, which changed how agendas are created.
Second Myth: “Under previous council presidents, councilors introduced new topics and legislation at workshops, got a head nod from others that it was worth spending time on, and then it was added to the agenda.”
Myth Busted: If this is the case, why have numerous pieces of legislation (originated by both Council members who are not the Council President AND the Mayor at that time) been introduced outside of this supposed process? My guess is that this “process” is now being being manufactured to fit the narrative in order to justify bad legislation.
The worst part of this legislation?
Micromanaging the agenda creation process and preventing Council members from adding legislation to the agenda independent of the Council President or workshops could quite literally put the people of Hudson in harms way.
The newly adopted process states that legislative agenda items can ONLY be added at a workshop. What if an emergency occurs in between workshops? The span of time between workshops is usually about two weeks. This change requires that Council has to now call a special workshop in order to add something to the legislative agenda.
Here’s the real fact, Jack.
In the instance Hudson is experiencing an emergency, calling a special workshop to discuss, ad nauseum, adding an item to the legislative agenda that should have 0 opposition wastes precious minutes. Precious minutes that I don’t even want to consider if we will have or not, without knowing what sort of emergency we might even experience. I, for one, am not willing to put Hudson in harms way.
This Council majority put the people of Hudson at risk in order to have complete control of the agenda and strip the voices and power away from certain Council members.
Too bad for them, I won’t ever stop using my voice.
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Have questions? Want to share your thoughts with me on this issue or a different one? As always, I would love to have a conversation! Email me directly at nkowalski@hudson.oh.us.
