08/10/2010 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes of a Public Hearing On Proposed Charter Review Revisions 8-10-10 Page 33 debates. The Minutes are like this thick combined of all of their discussions and each person's statement on every issue. So, that's all public record. Ms. Bodnar asked, so we can all call City Hall tomorrow? But can they be requested to reconvene? Mr. Diemert replied, no, the time period was five months from when they convened to begin with. Ms. Bodnar asked, so you are saying we can't really do anything at this point? Mr. Diemert replied, correct. Ms. Bodnax added, it's pretty much cast in stone. Thank you. Mayor Rinker stated, just again, to reiterate, the reason we called the public meeting is part of the problem is the way the Charter mechanism works it gives you that lesser period of time and you always worry that people get more upset about the process than the actual merits because they feel they are being painted into a corner and clearly that's a sentiment that's been expressed tonight. All I can suggest to everyone is that at least we feel we've gotten the proverbial ball rolling by having this kind of opportunity for a forum to express these things. This is by no means the last word that residents have to have. I don't think you have to feel like it's just going to go up between now and November before people vote. I think the right of people not only to convene here to assemble and petition their public officials but to communicate with each other as it clearly was done before this meeting. That's something that goes on. So this is an issue. These issues can be addressed by us collectively. And I suspect they would be. But the process itself as the Charter sets it up is the way it is, the way the Law Director has explained it. Jean Triner 829 Hanover Road Just a real quick one. I wanted to thank this group too for having this meeting. Mayor Rinker, you just really triggered a great idea because it is hard for us. We are all so busy and I know I didn't really want to get involved in this. I just felt like it's too important not to. Is there some way using the website that we who may want to get people that are educated and to hear more about what Brenda has said, not just the people in this room, but the people who couldn't make the meeting. Can we use the website somehow interactively to post something to say, please come and hear other viewpoints? Mayor Rinker thinks the short answer is yes. Exactly how we do that, we are still learning, so I don't have a quick answer for you, but fundamentally that's really why we have tried to make changes to our web to make it a more active mechanism and in turn, like the meeting tonight with protocol which I think for the most part everyone has really followed quite well, I have been to a lot of different public meetings and they can get much more interesting.