I attended the appeal of the recent Board of Architectural Review hearing heard before City Council. The original expectation was that this public hearing would be held on a Saturday in April at the usual time for a Council public hearing. I am unclear as to the reason to postpone. At the beginning of the hearing Mayor Wilson described the need to reschedule as a “snafu.” That part was very clear. It was only the first of three related to this matter.
The city government in recent years has endeavored to interact with citizens online, including encouraging them to sign up online to speak at public hearings. However, no one at city hall remembered to reprogram the on-line signup system to allow signing up on Tuesday, when normally Council does not hear public hearing items.
This hearing had the largest public attendance of any I have participated in recent years. Many citizens who had never before spoken at a public hearing tried to sign up online and got a message that no public hearing items would be heard on Tuesday, May 14.
Naturally these involved citizens attempting to exercise their rights as Americans were livid, not to say enraged. Luckily some of us who had previously participated in public hearings were able to get the word out that anyone who called the City Clerk’s office could sign up by speaking with one of the efficient employees there. We averted what could have been an ugly incident at the public hearing. That was snafu number two.
Finally the mayor’s lack of imagination caused snafu number three. The Tuesday legislative meeting is used to honor the outstanding work of the city’s volunteers and employees such as the fire chief with ceremonial presentations and to hear reports on important issues such as the coming Metro shutdown. These matters were scheduled well in advance and could not be rescheduled.
The one public hearing did not begin until around 9 p.m. and continued until close to 1 a.m. Mayor Wilson complained about the lateness of the hour several times. As the mayor, he could have set this public hearing for a special night, such as Thursday, May 16. The annual public hearing on spending in the city budget is always held on a Monday night. With just a little imagination on his part, the mayor and Council and all the citizens present for that hearing could have gotten to bed earlier on Tuesday night, on rather earlier on Wednesday morning.
Katy Cannady
Alexandria