Contributor Opinion by Joseph Jordan: What's Going On?
Feb 16, 2008 14:30 - 2 Comments
>The following contributor opinion is by Joseph Jordan:
I am not sure who received Piotr Gajewski’s “press release”, but I learned of his intended town hall meeting via the Rockville Central blog. What’s going on here? We have John Britton sending letters on the court house, but no idea who they are being sent to. Mr. Gajewski is having his own meetings at City Hall. At the same time, meeting after meeting is canceled because there is not enough business to discuss. Yet Mr. Britton wants to have quarterly meetings to discuss ideas. Is this a body working together, for the citizens of Rockville, or is there another election going on we are not aware of?
Mayor and Council meetings scheduled for this Monday (19th) and the following (25th) have been canceled because of “insufficient business.” It seems to me this affords the perfect opportunity to have a “Town Hall” kind of meeting involving all the mayor and council, maybe even some staff members. Wear stripes, jeans — whatever — roll up your sleeves, and have an open dialog with the people who elected you and whom you represent. What are our issues, our concerns?
Here are some suggestions on agenda items for future meetings:
- Town Center – Financial information on the original plans and projections for revenue and expenditures and the trend lines on actual outcomes on both measures, including information on sales and rentals of the condos, parking garages, etc.;
- Information on contingency plans that the City has (if any) for dealing with a major reduction in tax assessment revenue and reduced funding for current projects from the County and State, should the County and State make their expected cuts;
- Information about how the funding requirements for any plans for new development will be met if the anticipated revenue is not forthcoming;
- Pros and cons of hiring a Lead City Attorney versus retaining outside law firm;
- Report on status of pavers debacle — who did, or did not do, what and who pays;
- What can the city do to reverse the perception that Rockville is not business friendly. What can be done to find balance between serving the tax paying residents and the tax paying businesses.
Joseph Jordan
New Mark Commons
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>Rockville City Council member Piotr Gajewski has sent along this response:
I am not exactly sure what Joe is asking about when he poses the question: “What’s going on here?” But then he goes on to write about the Townhall Meeting that I recently announced.
To be honest, since taking office, I am finding that taking input from citizens is not so easy. A three minute appearance by a citizen at Citizens’ Forum does not really allow for an exhaustive exchange on a topic, and to date I have been assigned to only one Mayor and Council Drop-In (these are assigned on rotation).
This lack of opportunity for face-to-face interaction with citizens is the reason that I have announced the Townhall Meeting. What shocked me then, when I approached the Rockville staff to help me organize the Meeting, is that there are no City resources appropriated for assisting either the Mayor or the individual Councilmembers in communicating with the citizens.
As I see communicating with constituents to be a total prerequisite for governing, I am striking out on my own to try to remedy the situation. To answer the specific question posed by Joe with respect to the press release: I personally sent it to the Gazette and Rockville Central; and am working this weekend to achieve wider distribution (I would be grateful if Joe and other community association officers would help out by distributing the release in the communities). This is the best distribution system that I have been able to come up with, as, ironically the City will not assist in any way (posting on Channel 11, for example) without a full Mayor and Council action (I do hope to address this with my Mayor and Council colleagues at some point).
Councilmember Gajewski isn’t sure what I am asking when I pose the question, “what’s going on here?” Well since you asked, I would like to know what is going on with the rash of cancelled mayor and council general sessions. They will have met once in general session in the month of February. What is going on with the fact they don’t have anything to meet about as a group but Mr. Gajewski wants to have his own citizen forum at city hall and Mr. Britton wants to have quarterly meetings with no cameras. What is going on with Mr. Britton, who wrote an opinion piece on the court house issue, calling for stakeholders to meet…a little too late I might add. Everything I have read recently says we lost the fight…the court house will go where the old library is and the old post office will be renovated at a cost of $7.8M (with potential state and federal funds of about $2M), to become the new police headquarters. What is going on with the fact the two newest members of the council did not attend the Rockville Day event in Annapolis last week. State senators, District 17 delegates and staff assistants were there. So to were the Lt. Governor, a dozen city staff members and Warren Parish of the Gazette. What is going on with the fact Mr. Gajewski is having his “town hall” meeting the same evening city officials are slated to meet with the County Executive. I hope this helps answer the question I posed.