Once the council recognized the lady, that was discussion of city business. The purpose for the Council Meeting was directed to public discussion. It is silly to state that the only purpose of the Council Meeting was to "conduct city business". A city council is a representative body, not a dictatorship. The lady was obviously in the middle of a dispute between the Mayor and the majority of the council members.
The very fact that there is a video, indicates to me that this was "planned".
I served on a City Council in a Town of 10,000 population for a time. And have some experience with citizen input. Government with the consent of the citizens is what we are about.
Nonsense, Friend. Videorecording devices are everywhere these days.
That was then. This is now. While that was true in the past, now we have became too civilized for that. We are now being conditioned that we need “professionals” to make our decisions for us.The individual is no longer competent to hake their day-to day life decisions. We need “professional” juries, “Professional” police, “professional” rulers, to wit: politicians, “professional” firemen. The list goes on, even down to “professional rat killers.
While this was a local town meeting the same principle applies. As Texas Fossil says of his experience on a city council of a similar town "Government with the consent of the citizens is what we are about."
You, MB26, object that the audience cannot conduct city business, but the council can. While it is true that the council conducts city business, it is untrue that the "audience" does not.
First off it is NOT a mere audience. It is the citizens and other interested parties. All do or can conduct business with the city offices and authorities under the direct mastery of the council. Every permit, every appearance before a hearing board, every time a citizen complies with or disregards a city ordinance that too is city business.
These meetings and the public business in them are required to be PUBLIC for good reason, and not as some spectacle of the operation of a court royal for an audience of lessors to sit sniffing at.
Moreover those citizens have a direct interest in council actions and a duty to perform oversight and corrections on the council. The scope of such oversight is broad, the duty and mechanisms of correction do NOT start and end at the elections every few years, they are continual. At any time citizens can hold officials to official account for misfeasance and malfeasance. They can file charges, they can initiate suits, they can request official investigations, they can usually perform some sort of actionable petition -- for recall, for referendum.
Please get you mind right on these important duties of American citizens, citizen!
Planned? Oh please, that is ludicrous. Watch the video again.