08/21/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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reasons were good ones, it would have behooved the people involved in that process to say or do something about it. They did neither, despite my written request to do so. r+ny concern is that if we truly wish to develop these matters and thereby assist voters in reaching a decision by referendum, we should pay a lot more attention to explaining our actions and giving voters the necessary insight on the fundamental issues we believe are at play. This is the most democratic way of airing compe#ing issues. It is a way calculated to achieve consensus. It provides for an informed electorate. It is otherwise an inadequate process that allows matters important enough to be placed in a referendum to arrive there without the deliberation of wider, more open discussion. I remind you that this item was initiated at a special meeting of Council convened as one of a series of specia{meetings for addressing the Village Wage Ordinance. tt was proposed at the meeting's end without having been placed on the agenda. No one on Council suggested that it be sent to the Planning and Zoning Commission much less Council's own Ordinance Review Committee for advise and consent. I suspect that both bodies would have been well-positioned to compare and contrast the new proposal with the earlier proposal they had reviewed and for which they had previously made recommendations. Doing so would have _~ increased the likelihood of open discussion. L Not only were these two referrals not made, nor apparently even contemplated by any Council representative to be so referred, Council itself offered no further insight to voters about the legislation at subsequent meetings. Some of you will recall that only a few short weeks ago, our Charter Review Commission presented a proposal (among several) that sounded a discordant note among some Council representatives. Those representatives were both vigilant and vacat in their opposition to the proposal. It is worth noting that that particular proposal was in fact presented only after a series of Commission discussions, which in turn had also been published for all to review. The opportunity to object in timely fashion was thus provided by the existence of both the discussions and their written publication. In short, due process of the Commission's deliberations afforded people the chance to speak out. As a consequence, the Commission eventually chose not to present the matter to the voters, even though a number of its members had felt the issue important enough to do so. Collectively, the Commission voted instead to allow the discussion to proceed alternatively in anon-time driven forum. ,., *** 3