At last night’s city council meeting, council member Bob Van Vleet referred to a news story out of Bell, California – a community that discovered that its city officials and city council members were making hundreds of thousands of dollars for those jobs.
While I am not quite sure what point he was making by bringing up the story, I looked it up to see what he was talking about. I was curious how such a thing could happen without the people of the community realizing it.
In a story from The Associated Press, I found the explanation, and give you the excerpt (in bold) from the story here.
“In Bell, however, not many people really paid attention. The city of mostly small homes is like many American cities and towns: No newspaper covers them regularly, and the citizens spend what little free time they have with family and recreation.
“A few who kept tabs on City Hall said they were suspicious because the officials were secretive, brusque and quick to act without explaining themselves.”
I guess it’s a good thing we are keeping tabs on our city council, and are asking the council members to explain themselves when they make decisions that affect us all.
The budget workshops to set the 2010-11 budget will start at 6:30 p.m. on Monday Aug. 2 and Tuesday Aug. 3 at City Hall. If needed, the work may continue on Wednesday.
These workshops are open to the public, and are the real meat-and-potatoes work of the council, when many difficult decisions are made.
Let’s keep tabs by attending these meetings and being a part of the process.
Otherwise, we might get our “Bell” rung.
