Can we see by a show of hands how many Emerald City political wonks have checked out a published City Council agenda at one time or another and found themselves entirely unable to decipher with any particularity -- or even remotely -- what was calendered to be discussed at an upcoming meeting? For example, here's Wednesday's Standard-Examiner public notice concerning yesterday's Ogden City Council work session, which sets forth the council's "agenda" thusly:
"Discuss city needs and council business"Although published Ogden City Council agendas have never been a model of deeply descriptive and craftsmanlike specificity, it's our opinion that under current council leadership, the standards for public meeting agenda notices have descended to a level where serious misunderstandings have been absolutely certain to occur. Lo and behold, Scott Schwebke provides a story in this morning's S-E edition illuminating 2-1/2 hours of confusion at Tuesday's City Council work session, where nary a City official in the entire Council Chamber had the slightest clue what the meeting's agenda, (reportedly phrased in language similar to that set forth above) was supposed to be all about:
Boss Godfrey characterizes Tuesday night's council fiasco as "dysfunctional;" and it seems to us that the little feller is right about something for once.
It's Council Chair Gochnour's council leadership roll to formulate and approve the council agenda, by the way, and her responsibility to keep the discussion on topic as the meeting progresses. Taking Mr. Schwebke's morning story into account, it seems to us that Chairman Gochnour almost completely ducked out of the the opportunity to assert herself as Council Chair, first by allowing to be published an agenda phrased in hopelessly vague terms, and secondly, by failing to take charge of Tuesday's discussion when the meeting spun out of control.
Maybe somebody needs to send her a copy of Robert's Rules.
Maybe she needs to step down and let Council Vice-Chair Garner take over.
Maybe a few of our gentle WCF readers will offer their own takes on this.
