Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Does Greensboro’s City Council think most of its citizens know more than they ought to?

If they can get you asking the wrong questions,
they don't have to worry about answers.

Thomas Pynchon
"Mayor to push speakers from the floor back

Greensboro Mayor Bill Knight said during a city council briefing today
that at the council's next meeting on Jan. 19 he plans to begin scheduling speakers from the floor
at a time near the end of the meeting.

"Some of the folks that are going to speak from the floor might have to wait for awhile,
but unfortunately people who have business have to wait until 11 o'clock," Matheny said.
"We've got to get back to doing the business of the city.""

Jordan Green
Yes Weekly, January 5, 2010

2 comments:

diane said...

After having attended many Greensboro City Council meetings, I get the impression that most of the speakers from the floor don't care about anything except their own issues.
If they speak at the beginning of the meeting, they usually leave immediately after their issue is discussed.
If they are scheduled to speak at the end of the meeting, they get to the meeting late.
I know that much of the meeting is boring and a re-hash of things that have already been decided in other meetings, but it seems rude to "talk and run". (versus run-on talk, like most council members).

Triadwatch said...

i did not see leaving the speakers from floor at beginning was such a problem. It is tough to have citizens stick around for the babbling that goes on at city council meetings to finally get a chance to speak. If they can limit time to say 30 minutes and then if you want to speak at end of council meeting please do.

We also need to remember that there is a state law that only allows one meeting of month devoted to speakers from floor as part of process. High Poing only allows one time a month to speak in front of council.

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