Todd Paris, Associate Editor and Salisbury Attorney
♦ Tuesday night at Outreach Christian Ministries, the City of Salisbury hosted an event called a “Community Conversations”. It was the first of many planned events to allow regular people to ask questions and have an open dialog with City Staff and Officials. Now, this is some of the transparency we have been talking about! Way to go, guys!
This how you conduct a “Community Conversation” – Salisbury City Government style:
You take everyone’s questions and instead of answering them. You write them on a whiteboard and tell the questioners to leave their phone numbers and (or) emails with an employee at the back of the room and that staff will contact them soon to answer their questions.
That’s it. I’m dead serious. Of course, a few city employees were there to inform the public about city services, but reports on the conversation are that few questions were answered. But the answer to almost all questions essentially came down to, “We’ll get back to you.” Pitiful! As transparent as Yadkin river water.
Of course, they have to avoid a debacle like last year when a pesky City Council candidate and perennial pain in the municipal “keester” asked questions that exposed how the Chief of Police was working a second job, had no idea of the numbers of unsolved murders, could not give a single victim’s name, and that the City Clerk had received thousands of dollars of furniture for her office from her husband’s internet sales job. Horror of horrors, that was in front of the media! I bet that does not happen again!
This “conversation” was a bad idea, as executed. The least they could have done is for Lane Bailey, Council and Staff to answer the questions that they could, and use the whiteboard stunt for questions that require specific facts and figures.
This was just like a public comment period, like at normal City Council meetings. Citizens say things within a three minute limit, and council rarely responds other than to have the mayor thank them for coming. A dialogue is defined as an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially a political or religious issue, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement. “We will get back to you, privately by email at a later time” does not meet the definition.
Perhaps they are scared of me after the candidate question and answer debacle. I will make them a deal. If they will actually bring the staff to the next meeting and actually answer questions from the public, as best they can, and reserve “We will get back to you” for questions that honestly require facts and figures, I will agree to sit that one out.
This format was disrespectful to the citizens that attended. Those asking questions might as well have stayed home and emailed the staff directly. The one saving feature was that unlike City Council meetings, it was held late enough in the day so that people with jobs could attend. Mayor Alexander and Lane Bailey should have meetings where citizens can have a true conversation instead of being controlled to the point where participation is all but meaningless.
