Heres’ something a little different being tried in Worchester, MA by blogger Chris Pearson.

A Live Blog from City Hall!

Minute by minute Chris details what is happening with the council chambers.

7:09: It begins! It’s crowded and busy out in the hallway, and there’s a good-sized crowd in the seats

7:10: Eddy starts us off with a resolution to honoring judge, city councilor, and mayor Paul Mullaney for his commitment to the community, and his 90th birthday. ”It’s far too often that we don’t speak enough about the people who made this city what it is today,” says Eddy.

7:13: Mullaney speaks. “It gives me a great feeling for Thanksgiving and the holidays to follow.” He attributes his long life to never having a cigarette and adds “I never had a drink of alcohol–until I got to the city council.”

And on and on it goes throughout the entire meeting. Obviously if you know the characters it would make the blog more interesting.

Has anyone else tried this? Seen it attempted?

It sounds like a good discussion topic for the Government Meetings class.

Love’m or hate’m, yard signs are visible in practically every political campaign.

There are strategies involved in making those yard signs the best marketing tools possible.

The Electioneering 101 class will be discussing the following article after Thanksgiving break.

3 Creative Ways to Place You Election Signs

This article is from that great website LocalVictory.Com.

(If you are a local government candidate you should have that website bookmarked.)

Every now and then I read about a Mayor that suggests changing from a paid fire department to a volunteer fire department.

The latest comes from LaCrosse, WI.

A memo Fire Chief Gregg Cleveland sent Mayor Harter on Nov. 10 indicates the mayor asked the chief to report on converting half the department to a volunteer force withing 1.5 years and the full department within three years.

“He asked me to do something and he’s the boss,” Cleveland said. “These types of decisions aren’t mayoral decisions or council decisions or chief’s decisions. They’re community decisions. It all comes down to what level of risk are they willing to assume.”

The fire chief said he couldn’t speculate how many volunteers would be required to staff La Crosse’s four fire stations. The department this year already has fielded 4,228 calls for service.

This is the problem. Successful volunteer fire departments (and yes there are very successful volunteer fire departments) depend on tradition. Sons, and now daughters, following in the footsteps of their fathers. It is not just the tradition but the immense amount of pride that goes with it.

The tradition and pride needed to staff a volunteer fire department cannot be developed overnight, or in 1.5 years or even three years.

Can anyone think of one instance where a full time staffed fire department reverted back to a volunteer department successfully?  If so let me know.

It is thought by some that “big city” city councils are smarter than “little city” city councils … more sophisticated … all that crap.

I’m here today to tell you that stupid decisions are made everywhere.

NEW YORK, NY November 16, 2009 —The city council has overwhelmingly approved a new five-minute grace period for certain parking violations before those bright orange tickets can be issued. However, Mayor Bloomberg is vowing to veto the bill. “A five-minute grace period is only going to lead to chaos, and enormous increases, I think, in contested tickets and arguments,” Bloomberg says.

But the council, which approved the rule by a vote of 47 to 2, has enough votes to override any veto. Supporters say they believe the five-minute rule will end a “ticketing blitz” by the Bloomberg administration, and a “gotcha” attitude by traffic enforcers. An analysis by The New York Times found that, last year, 276,000 tickets were written within five minutes of alternate side parking rules going into effect. Of those, 28,000 were written at the exact moment the rules took effect.

But, but, but…. what if I am within five minutes of the five minute grace period?

I’m with the Mayor on this one. This will create chaos and arguments up the wazoo.

I will be anxious to see if the Political Philosophy Class agrees with me?

Different stories effect different people in different ways.

This one brings a little moisture to the eye.

Father, son to serve on Bridgeport City Council

Isn’t that just precious?

A great discussion is planned for the Intergovernmental Relations Class.  

Dan Thompson, Executive Director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities tells us …

Starting in 2010, a city or village that wants to operate its police department or its fire department more efficiently and save tax dollars will first need to get permission from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR).

I know it sounds crazy, but I am not making this up. The new requirement is called “maintenance of effort for emergency services.” It appears in Section 79.07 (3) of the Wisconsin statutes. Here is the language:

A county or municipality may decrease the amount it spends for emergency services below its 2009 amount, with the Department of Revenue’s approval, if the decrease in expenditures is a result of operating more efficiently, as determined by the department.

You’re thinking this can’t be true, right?

The State Department of Revenue having control over the cost of local police and fire protection?

How did this happen?

The politics of the new law, however, is perfectly clear. The police officers union and the firefighters union lobbied hard to persuade Gov. Doyle and legislative leaders to include “maintenance of effort for emergency services” in the 2009-11 state budget, signed into law on June 29 as Act 28.

The union goal is to prevent city councils and village boards from reducing the number of police officers and firefighters on the municipal payroll.

Any city council or village board that requests an “efficiency waiver” from DOR should expect a vigorous challenge from the police union and the firefighters union.

I’m still trying to get my arms around this.

The State Department of Revenue having veto power on how much MUST be spent by local government on police and fire protection.

By the time class discusses this maybe we’ll find out this is just a bad nightmare, but I doubt it.

Comments Anyone?

Barking dogs and roaming cats have caused headaches for Mayors ever since there has been dogs and cats and Mayors. Ask any Mayor.

But birds?

It’s not quite Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” but former Mannington Mayor Frank White says he’s had enough of the winged creatures for a long time. White said his neighbor, City Councilman Jeff Michael, has been providing a regular smorgasbord for birds, with seed, bread and even French fries.

As a result, White said there are up to 60 birds at a time on his property. He said most of the birds are pigeons, which he calls a nuisance.

He’s asked the city to intervene, but current Mayor Bob Garcia said he’s not sure exactly what powers Mannington has in the situation.

So, we have a former Mayor complaining to the present Mayor about a Councilman feeding the birds.

I love these kind of stories.

Since I’m not involved.

Have you seen the latest Rasmussen Poll?

Only 17% of U.S. voters want their child to grow up to be a politician, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Sixty-three percent (63%) say, No way.

What a sad commentary on my profession.

Yes, I am a politician and darn proud of it.

Yes, I would encourage my children or anyone’s children to become a politician.

How about you?

Do you believe this poll?

How good is your city’s website?

According to OhMyGov …

Federal agency websites are beginning to catch up with the private sector in terms of citizen satisfaction, reaching their highest levels ever, according to a study released this morning.

Good for federal websites!

But, what about local government websites?

I follow a number of local government websites for agendas and minutes. My satisfaction with those local websites is increasing over time. They are all not up to 2009 standards, but they are getting better. I have no big complaints. Minor bitches sure, but no big complaints.

So, how good is your city and county website?

City Councils are constantly changing. Changes don’t wait until elections. Resignations occur all the time. Appointments are made to fill vacancies.

Well, most of the time appointments are made to fill vacancies.

Then there is Wapato, WA.

The city council is this Central Washington town has turned away the only applicant for a city council seat that has remained open since January.

Eliva Lopez is a former council member who decided to apply for the open post. But at last Monday’s meeting, Lopez’s application was denied.

Council members tell the Yakima Herald-Republic that Lopez, 34, was denied because her past tenure on the council was too closely aligned with former councilman Juan Orozco, who they consider too controversial.

Mayor pro tem Tony Guzman says Lopez wouldn’t be a good fit and cause “unnecessary friction.”

The appropriateness of refusing to seat the only applicant for a council seat will be discussed  in Local Politics 101 class on Wednesday.

Mayors have power. No doubt about it. The power of the bully pulpit is one of the powers. When Mayors talk … people listen. They don’t necessarily agree but they listen.

Who’s listening now?

An outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country’s child abuse problem – pay the “appalling underclass” not to breed.

Michael Laws – who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a “bloated brown slug” – has again hit the headlines.

“That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born,” the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio websitewhere he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.

“That these ‘parents’ are known to authorities … and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed.”

Mr Laws goes on to write: “it would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care.”

The mayor believes “the consequent financial and social savings to our community would be considerable.

“There are too many people who should not have children.”

Mr Laws said a report in New Zealand’s Dominion-Post newspaper yesterday had incorrectly attributed the view to him that all those who got welfare should be sterilised.

Mr Laws wrote on the website ”that most welfare beneficiaries are good parents” but it was the problem ones who should be offered money not to breed.

Yesterday’s Dominion-Post newspaper quotes him as saying: “If we gave $10,000 to certain people and said ‘we’ll voluntarily sterilise you’ then all of society would be better off.” 

“There’d be less dead children and less social problems.”

Any volunteers to defend this position?

With all the real issues a city council must deal with, to spend time on nonsense issues makes no sense to me.

What is a real issue and what is nonsense?

You tell me what this is.

A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted today to seek a law banning veterinarians from declawing cats, saying the procedure constituted cruelty to animals.

The council’s Public Safety Committee unanimously recommended that City Atty. Carmen Trutanich draft an ordinance banning the practice. The proposal was made by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Paul Koretz, who said the procedure caused “unnecessary pain, anguish and permanent disability” to cats.

Councilman Tony Cardenas threw his support behind the measure but voiced doubts that the city’s Animal Services Department had enough employees to enforce such a law.  He also worried that cat owners will simply go to veterinarians in neighboring cities to get the procedure, sometimes known as an onychectomy.

“I don’t want to give you false hope,” Councilman Greig Smith told the audience of cat advocates and assorted city employees. “This is not going to stop the problem.”

The Political Philosophy Class will be discussing this next week.

Your comments are welcome now.

Everyone has ideas how to win elections. Even those people who have never run for election think they know how to win elections.

Joe Garecht has written a piece “How NOT to Win Election Campaigns.”

It is recommended reading for Election Class.

It is election day some places in the country. There is none more important than the one being held in Snellville, GA.

I have read many articles over the past couple of years about the Snellville, GA City Council. The latest from the Atlanta Journal Contstitution relates …

Tuesday’s election could tip the balance of power on Snellville’s City Council, an often dysfunctional body described by one member as “a cul-de-sac of inaction.”

A cul-de-sac of inaction. That is a classic line. I gotta remember that one.

For almost two years, the six-member council hasn’t gotten along. In council chambers, they hurl insults like arrows. In work sessions, they employ political ambushes with last-minute agenda changes.

But the governing body’s penchant for tie votes on issues ranging from a controversial crematory to Sunday alcohol sales has raised even more eyebrows among residents, political observers, even a state senator.

“This election is going to have impact on the future and in what direction we go forward,” Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer said. “People are tired of the bickering. They’re tired of the arguing.”

I have no preference who wins in Snellville. I only wish them a little peace.

If your community has problems like Snellville I also wish you may achieve some degree of civility.

It was a very quick trip to Phoenix over the weekend for me.

Said good-bye to an old friend.

I didn’t check emails even once.

I didn’t read a newspaper for over 48 hours.

I feel blissfully ignorant.