Council Watch

It's possible to spend longer looking for a parking spot than attending a City Council Meeting. Today I attended my first city council meeting. I plan on attending every week, if possible. Check here on Wednesday's to get your dose of the council meetings with a liberal slant.


If you wish to speak in front of council you need to be there early, say 1 PM. The council assembles at 1:30 PM to hear citizens, your only allow two minutes total. The Mayor starts this proceeding by admonishing speakers and reminding them of the laws regarding speaking to council. He obviously is saying I won't put up with the shit the last mayor did.

First Speaker: Was an African American gentleman who had a thick hood accent, and kept saying we need to move to phase 2-Jobs. He said that the Yuth are not able to find jobs. He spoke of how felons couldn't get jobs, and he was a felon. Many council members didn't even seem to be listening.

Second Speaker: A Caucasian woman came up to the podium and people started paying attention, with the exception of Monzel and Bortz who has their own private conversation. She was asking the city to dump leftover blacktop on her private drive on the westside of town. The life squad had trouble reaching her on Saturday when she had some life threatening episode. She thanked the lifesquad and others for their help. I understand that she had an emergency, but is it the city's problem if she lives on a private drive and the residen't s don't take care of it? I say, move or get the neighbors to pitch in. During this time Jeff Berding disapeared all together.

Third Speaker: An African American woman mentioned a lot of things I couldn't keep up with all of them. Then she slammed into gear against the antidiscrimination ordiance that the council proposed. She stated that no matter what you hear from others, even black ones, the black community doesn't support the ordiance. That's nice she can speak for the entire African American community.

Fourth Speaker: I'll name this one, he is a regular at the meetings Kabaka Oba, he got up and talked about the police. What a surprise. He mentioned the economic apartied and then back to the police and Tasers. He voiced his opinion that Tasers should not be the first line of defense after a verbal warning. He thought maybe the exception of if you have a weapon. He mentioned tasing children after he was prompted by speaker three. He ended with some rap about good police/bad police.

Fifth Speaker: Was an African American gentleman that gave a word to god first. He stated that he was there on behalf the African Culture Commission. I noticed while he was talking Ghiz was working her crackberry. He talked aobut gays and city workers. The gist of his message was that the City was just giving lip service to gays, if they don't start offering benefits to partners of gays, like fortune 500 companies do. After he spoke I cought up with him to find out more. He mentioned that if the city gave gays benefits, then they sould have to give them to heterosexual workers with girlfriends too. I think he was pushing the no special rights angle.
The city council went into a recess till 2 PM.

I want to say that if you get up to speak at a meeting, you need to start by asking the council members to pay attention, quit talking and using their crackberries.

The 2 PM hour came and went and people got anxious waiting for the meeting to start. Speaker three said "What is this colored time? A black mayor and the meetings start late". This got Mallory's attention and he chuckled and called the meeting to order. This part was started by asking people to stand for a silent prayer and the pledge of allegiance. I sat through the silent part and got up for the pledge. Why do we need a prayer?

The mayor likes bereverity. He quickly launces in to reading the item numbers of the resolutions and calling a roll call vote.

He pushed through a few items then Crowley has something to day about the resolution about helping the county build a jail. He stated that he was changing his intended vote because he toured the jail. The jail is 20 years old and is overcrowded. Many more women are incarcerated than the jail was built for. He said he would have rather resources been used to keep people out of jail.

Monzel weighed in on the jail. He said the majority of the offenders were repeat offenders and that last year 2,200 people were turned away. This sends a message that you commit a crime you won't go to jail. Police day that Kentucky ho's (my word, not his) come over to cincy, cause they won;t have to go to jail when they are arrested.

Cole said she was going to vote for this kicking and screaming. She voiced her concerns and then said that what we should be doing was to get to the bottom of the problem of the repeat offenders. Jobs- they need to feed their families and can't get jobs.

During the entire meeting Ghiz looked bored, I'm sure she would rather be spending her time with Karl Rove.
Meeting Adjourned, by 20 minutes after 2. Mallory doesn't mess around. The lady sitting next to me said this is so different then when Charlie was in charge. She said that Charlie would still be talking.
See you next week.