City Council Meeting

I attended the city council meeting on February 16th. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend a meeting that pertained specifically to the arts. This meeting was perhaps not the best to judge the city council by as it was very brief and did not go into detailed discussion on the items. Roxanne Qualls, the vice mayor of Cincinnati, ran the meeting. It began with resolutions to honor two citizens. David Allen was honored for his work as music director at St. Williams church since 1961 and a "David Allen" day was proclaimed. So at least the arts were mentioned in some small way! Then the recently deceased Roberta McClain was recognized for her work in Cincinnati and her widower was given a certificate in honor of her. While these recognitions were very nice, they seemed like empty gestures made in front of an almost empty room just for the council members to be able to say that they honor local citizens.

After the pledge of allegiance the business portion of the meeting began. There were about 30 items on the agenda and for the most part they were run-through very quickly with just yes or no votes. I was surprised and became very wearisome of how many times they had to go through the yes/no process. There was only real contention over one item. One of the council members was upset that it didn't pass because a member who had promised to vote yes was not present. I was never clear where she had gone, on a bathroom break or been called away for a moment, but she came back and there was a call to re-consider. With her there the motion did pass. Item 27 was a motion to help the Clifton IGA work with local tax officials to be able to re-open. A council member made a speech imploring the passage of this motion by talking about the 50 jobs that would be restored if IGA could re-open. It did pass. The meeting was wrapped up with announcements by committees about upcoming meetings and birthdays.

I was surprised how little discussion there was about any of the motions. I expected there to be more argument over passage and to get to hear more about Cincinnati politics. I have since watched pieces of other meetings in the online videos and it appears that more of that usually happens. Perhaps it didn't on this day because the mayor was not there, or maybe all the items just happened to be very straight forward. I was also surprised by the process that had to be repeated over and over and over again when passing items. This kind of thing is what defines bureaucracy negatively in my mind. However, it was very interesting to go and observe the process of local government. So much emphasis is put on learning how the federal government works, but it is the local government that most impacts our day-to-day lives and this is the first time I have ever seen it at work.