Reform City’s Public Forum Letter Of The Week: From Dec. 17

Messages of doom. Ranting and tirades. A noble experiment gone awry. Absurd. An attention-getting device. Therapy for some and a campaign vehicle for others.

Sound like a typical City Council meeting involving the usual dysfunctional council members?

Believe it or not, this is how those council members are describing the citizens’ forum portion of a City Council meeting. These sometimes rude, arrogant, bickering and hostile council members are so critical of the citizens and their forum that they want to eliminate it. They want to put the public forum at the end of the public meeting and not televise it.

Interesting that The Spokesman-Review just ran a lengthy series about the growing mistrust of government. I always suspected the City Council wasn’t truly interested in public input.

Many meetings go past 10 and even 11 p.m. They force citizens to wait for hours and then shut the TV cameras off so taxpayers at home can’t participate. Oddly enough, that TV broadcast is called a government access channel. It will become limited access again if this latest council threat to public participation passes.

The council could enact reasonable requirements to ensure that a few lunatics don’t ruin the forum for everyone. Limit testimony to issues the city is responsible for. The forum isn’t for preaching, politicizing or complaining about matters outside the jurisdiction of city government.

Citizens, don’t allow the council to stifle our participation in government with the excuse that they can’t control the public forum. Maybe it’s time to hire another consultant. Pete Powell Spokane

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