We had a pretty good Town Meeting last night at Forest Hill Elementary School. What made it pretty good? Well, I think it was pretty good for a number of reasons.
First, we had a nice turnout. I counted at least fifty people in our audience. It was a beautiful spring evening last night and the Twins were playing their home opener, so we had tough competition.
Second, there was good variety in the subjects that citizens spoke about. One of the risks of this kind of event is that a particular advocacy group of some kind will take it over and essentially run the meeting by monopolizing the microphone with their speakers talking about their subject matter. That didn't happen last night. We heard from people who want their taxes lowered; who want us to consider traffic signals at various intersections in town; who want us to take less deer during our annual deer reduction program; who want us to continue our deer management program; who want us to salt & sand running trails during the winter months; and people who want the City to coordinate a clean-up of post-winter litter around town. Good variety. We even got to end the evening with a comment from a citizen who was pleased with the Police Department's work on case that impacted her. That was a nice ending.
Finally, the audience and the speakers were respectful of the Council and of the process we created for them to share their thoughts with the Council. There might have been one or two exceptions to that, but of the 19 speakers who came to the microphone during the 90 minute meeting, 17/19 sharing their opinions, including those that shared opinions critical of the City, in a courteous and respecful manner, is pretty good. Compared to other cities I've worked in or other cities in the metro area (such as Maplewood right now), it's very good.
I'm attending Congressman Ramstad's Town Meeting tonight here in City Center in our Council Chambers. I am hoping that it will be just as pretty good.
