The Phoenix City Council Formal Meeting - Essay Example

The Phoenix Council Formal Meeting, October 16 The Council of Phoenix holds formal council meetings on Wednesdays, starting at 3 p.m. The venue of such meetings is the City Council Chambers, 200 West Jefferson St. Each meeting has its own distinct agenda. Nonetheless, the agenda of the meetings revolve around enacting and rejecting the laws of Phoenix, resolutions, and ordinances, as well as formal actions. Nonetheless, this paper focuses solely on the Phoenix City Council formal meeting that was held on Wednesday, 16 October 2013, starting 3 p.m. The members of the public in phoenix were notified about the City Council formal meeting through the council’s website. Although the council members mainly tackled the agenda of the meeting, the members of the public were also given an opportunity to contribute to the agenda. Furthermore, the council provided access to an electronic form of the agenda on their website, as well as a printed copy of the agenda, which was made available at the City Clerk’s Office on the fifteenth floor of the Phoenix City Hall, on Friday, prior to the meeting on Wednesday. This was in a bid to enable the members of the council, as well as members of the public to familiarize themselves with the agenda of the meeting beforehand. This also acted as a time saving strategy during the meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Greg Stanton opened the meeting with a few introductory words. This was shortly followed by invocation by Pastor Medrano. After the invocation, the Vice Mayor Bill Gates led the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag. Shortly after everyone had taken their seats, there was the roll call taken by the City Clerk, to take note of those council members that were present, and those that were absent. To this stage, it became clear that the meeting was well organized and flowed smoothly, in a systematic manner. It therefore, seemed to me that the officials concerned with the meeting had made earlier preparations to ensure that the meeting flowed smoothly, and systematically. This kind of high organization of the formal meeting should therefore, be upheld in the future. The meeting was full of many different dignitaries of varying calibres. Personally, I have rarely gotten to come close to the members of the council, all at once. The mayor, the City Clerk, different councilors, and many other council members were present in this meeting. The Mayor was in charge of facilitating the meeting, and I observed that he is highly eloquent and articulate. He spoke in an organized manner, and there was flow of thought in his sentiments. In addition, he had a good command language, and it was easy to listen and understand whatever point he was passing across. Of all the people attending this meeting, I was surprised by the presence of Bill Gates. Bill Gates is an influential personality across the globe; therefore, it was surprising to see him at the meeting. He was appointed the Vice Mayor of Phoenix early this year; thus, his presence was in this capacity. I know Bill Gates as a man that has featured in magazines and the media at some point as the wealthiest man alive. In addition, he is quite inspirational because he holds the aspect of philanthropy at his heart. Therefore, for me, it was a great surprise to see Bill Gates at the meeting, as I had not imagined that he would be present, despite having the knowledge that he was the Vice Mayor of Phoenix. The speaking process at the formal meeting was highly organized. It was not possible for anyone to speak as they wished. Instead, the mayor offered opportunities to different council members, who aired their views on the agenda of the meeting, including whether they supported or were opposed to some of the propositions raised in the meeting. Therefore, in order to maintain orderliness, one speaker spoke at a time. In addition, those council members chosen to speak only spoke for a short time, not exceeding 5 minutes. I observed that this could have been an unwritten rule of the council that each council member chosen to speak should speak for only a considerably short period. The formal meeting had quite many items on the agenda, which needed to be resolved. Despite this, the meeting proceeded extremely fast, as the core decisions were reached by the council members after a short discussion period. I assumed that this could have been because of the fact that the council provided copies of the agenda to council members beforehand, thus the council members were already familiar with the agenda items of the meeting. As noted, there were quite many items on the agenda, which included ordinances and resolutions. However, the Mayor was responsible for reading through the ordinances and resolutions from various parts of Phoenix, as they were presented to the council, and appeared on the agenda of the day. The other council members were also given an opportunity to comment on the ordinances and resolutions, where need be. I consider that this was greatly limiting. There was also no form of any interactivity to make this part of the meeting more lively. Instead of the mayor reading through the ordinances and resolutions, as they appeared on the agenda, I would have considered it more appropriate if the specific applicants would have been given a chance to present their applications by themselves. This according to me was, therefore quite limiting, and all was in a bid to save time, which the meeting would consume. With regard to the participation of members of the public, these were given a chance to appear before the City Council to express their views on the published agenda. After the formal meeting, there was held a citizen comment session, whereby members of the public were allowed to air their views and opinions about the major agenda items discussed. I observed that the time given to members of the public to contribute their views to the agenda was quite limited. Members of the public came last, thus did not contribute during the main meeting, when core aspects were being passed, such as the Mayor’s recommendation of appointments to boards and commissions. The members of the public did not exhaust their views and opinions, and those that wished to raise more issues were asked to see the city clerk. Nonetheless, the participation of the members of the public in this meeting was minimal, as I consider these to have highly played the role of an audience in the meeting, since core participation was by the council members. Overall, this was an insightful experience for me, as I learnt how City Council formal meetings are conducted. A major thing about the meeting was its high level of organization and orderliness. There was no any major form of disorderliness or unruliness by any individual attending the meeting. However, a drawback of this meeting was the limited participation of the members of the public. These were only allowed to air their views toward the end of the meeting, and they did not do this exhaustively. Additionally, I thought that the council members did not have sufficient time at their disposal to air their opinions. Nonetheless, the time factor played a major role in limiting the interactivity of the meeting, as council members rushed through core decisions. However, the meeting, according to me, was given all the seriousness it deserved. The core agenda of the meeting included the naming of appointments to the boards and commissions, by the mayor, and ordinances and resolutions. Nonetheless, the outcome of the meeting was that all the ordinances were adopted, while other applications were recommended by the council members for approval. Additionally, the council members voted for the appointments made by the mayor. Nonetheless, I believe that this formal meeting will have a positive influence on Phoenix, which individuals in Phoenix will experience in their own small ways. Read More