If you’ve ever attended a Norfolk City Council meeting, you will find no discussion of the issues that they are voting on. That’s because all of the discussion – including presentations on the issues – takes place in the informal session that occurs earlier. There has been a move underfoot, championed by the two newest council members, Andy Protogyrou and Tommy Smigiel, to bring Norfolk in line with its sister cities in the region and televise those informal sessions. Yesterday, at its retreat, council voted no.
Forget for a minute that council still holds roughly half of its meetings in the middle of the day, when a lot of us are at work. Forget that there are no minutes posted from these informal sessions for the people to review. And forget that turnout in last May’s council elections was a dismal 23% – and that’s with challengers in five of the six races.
Didn’t I read that it costs Norfolk over $1 million a year to maintain Waterside? But council is balking at spending $50,000 a year (if I read the numbers correctly) to televise council doing its job?
“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1820
I don’t know if council understands what that quote means.
If I had the time, I’d go to the informal sessions and broadcast them live using the free UStream.tv service. For that matter, why doesn’t council use it? It would certainly be better than what we have now, which is nothing.
UPDATE: The Virginian-Pilot editorial board agrees that the Norfolk council should turn on the cameras.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
This part I find hard to believe, “Fraim, who was re-elected with 64 percent of the vote against three opponents in May, said he heard little about televising meetings during his campaign.” I thought he was at Granby High School, I thougth he was at the Naro. At both of those venues, transparency was a theme encouraged by the citizens there. I don’t remember if all his opposition took a stance on transparency, but I thought at least one or two of them did. As the only citywide elected on council, he should have been listening to what was being said in the council races.
As far at the dollars and cents, I agree with you, and add, if the council can find money for PR officers for the commissioner of the revenue’s office, a person to oversee cemetary records, I don’t see why this can’t be accomplished. Each of those is a $40K hit for the city.
By the way, thanks Andy and Tommy for trying to move council along in the way your voters asked of you.
Yes, thanks to Andy & Tommy. I forgot to put that in the post.
I don’t know about the substance of this, and there’s a lot about which we disagree, VJP. However, on the point of televising those proceedings, we are in complete accord. While conducting such sessions in private may not violate the letter of the requirement for open meetings, it certainly violates its spirit.
They aren’t conducted in private, as anyone is able to attend. They are conducted at inopportune times, making it difficult for people to attend (which, I guess, is akin to private meetings). It’s a paltry sum to televise the meetings.