No Public Comment For Corpus Christi's Working Families

By proclamation of the Mayor? Sort of.

For some time now, the rule has been that citizens may comment on items not on the agenda at meetings of the Corpus Christi City Council at noon, and on items on the agenda as they come up on the agenda. This was never actually particularly friendly to including the input of the majority of citizens, who must work to support their families, in the decisions of the Council. Few citizens, after all, have the sort of jobs where they can take a long lunch to go wait their turn and comment, and precious few citizens have the kind of job that would allow them to hang around all day waiting to comment on an item that is on the agenda. This schedule at least made a nod toward working families, pretending they could come and comment at least on items not on the agenda on their lunch “hours”, magical thinking though it was.

Now they are not even pretending.

Public comment on items on the agenda remains on an “as they come up” basis and public comment on items not on the agenda will occur at 4pm, or the end of meetings, whichever comes first. People in the sort of high-paying jobs that expect you to flex your schedule around political appointments to make the money keep flowing will be able to manage this, I guess, but the majority of the citizens of this community don’t have that sort of job. Working families are the lifeblood of our community but the timing of City Council meetings and public comment periods denies us a voice in the decision-making process. This is unacceptable.

I used to work for the city and I am certainly sympathetic to concerns about keeping city staffers needed to answer questions at City Hall away from their own families deep into the night. I was a nursing mother a lot of the time that I worked for the city and frequently had to be around for City Council meetings so I really, really understand. Nonetheless, there are ways of handling this and it should be handled so that City Council meetings and the public comment periods can happen at times when working families can attend and be heard.

It would probably be the most fair to working families across the city if meetings alternated so that one Tuesday the meeting would be in the morning, and the next Tuesday, the meeting would be in the evening. That way, families who work traditional hours and families who do shift work would have equal access to meetings. As far as city staffers go, the Council could make a firm commitment to schedule which meeting particular city staff would need to be present for in advance and not require all department heads and the superintendents the department heads need to be present or on call for every single meeting.

They could also create a family friendly atmosphere at Council meetings, where city staffers and Council could attend with babies in slings or kids in tow if necessary. Some things are “not done” for stupid reasons of tradition and business culture, rather than because they actually affect the work in any way. The work could get done properly with city staffers’ kids around – it cannot get done properly when the citizens have no voice.

So how about it, Mr. Mayor? Do you really not care about the voice of working families as people are saying or are you the family-friendly person that you have said that you are? The city is not best run by a few powerful people. Even if you think you know best, it is not your place to decide for others.

Everyone deserves a voice in the decision-making process. Please let working families be part of the process, too.

For more from Lone Star Ma, go to www.lonestarmablog.blogspot.com.