City Government 101

On Tuesday afternoon, four of us council members (Aaron had a last-minute personal engagement and couldn’t make it) attended a council training session from 1-3pm at the City Hall conference room. Stuart Haynes of the Missouri Municipal League, a non-profit organization that supports city, county, town and village governments statewide, lent his expertise. He took us through the basics of city government: how our particular form of city government (specifically, 3rd Class City Manager charter) operates, what our different powers are, what we can and can’t do, how to interact with the city, etc. We all learned a lot, and I feel I can approach this job a bit more confidently after that.

An important part of this was legal and ethics training – guidelines of how we should conduct ourselves and our meetings, what we can and can’t do, and a detailed overview of the Sunshine Laws. If you’re not familiar with this, it can be summed up in the notion that all business the City and Council conduct, with a few highly restricted exceptions, must take place in an open, publicly announced meeting. Particularly that three or more of us (a quorum) could not meet and discuss city business in any way in any place. The only exception is closed executive sessions, in which only specific matters (real estate, legal matters and personnel with confidentiality concerns) can be discussed. The minutes of those closed meetings become public after the vote is taken and announced.

From day one, we’ve been taking these laws very seriously. Not only is it right and legal, but we can also be held personally liable if we violate them. We’ve also discussed opening our communications up even more. For example, beyond televising and recording meetings, Mari sends out a lot of info to the council via email. Anyone, at any time, can request a copy of these transmissions from the City Clerk. But we’re also discussing allowing anyone (like you) to subscribe to this “listserv” to have a copy of those messages sent to you at the same time they’re sent to the rest of us. Just to keep you in the loop, if you’re interested.

KIRKSVILLE ROCKS

Several groups around town have expressed interest in creating a more robust web presence to advertise events and happenings around town. As a first step toward consolidating these efforts, I met on Saturday with Royce Kallerud about his Kirksville Rocks website. It’s a website he developed 3 years ago to promote the local music scene and it’s been very successful. He is willing and interested to let us build on the following he’s gathered by opening it up to promote ALL the art events in Kirksville – music, theatre, visual arts, literary and film – in a robust online community. As he stated eloquently, “My philosophy is to encourage a vibrant local art scene by showing everyone how vibrant it already is.”

So over the next few weeks, we are going to meet with other interested groups – the Tourism dpt, the Adair County Drug Coalition, the community relations committee at Truman, the Kirksville Arts Association and a few others to pitch the idea and hopefully get their support and assistance. If this is something you’d like to get involved in, please let me know!

AROUND THE TOWN

* Rotary’s annual Chicken-Q is this Saturday, 10-2pm, at Kirksville High School. You can support the local YMCA After School programs and improvements to Rotary Park while eating a Half-a-Plump Q’d Chicken and all the sides for only $7. They offer delivery (626-1443 after 9am), and I hear the birds are even bigger this year! You’re also more than welcome to lend a hand at the grill if you’re so inclined…

* Tonight, a group of Truman students is sponsoring a Local Foods Dinner to encourage Sodexo, the campus food provider, to buy foods from local and regional producers.

* Speaking of local producers, the Farmer’s Market begins this Saturday on the square, from 7am to Noon. If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting for this since last November.

* Friends of the Library Book Sale beginning Saturday morning at the Adair County Public Library.

* And don’t forget Round Barn Blues from 4pm-Midnight on Saturday as well.

Man, just look at what you can do this weekend without ever leaving town! It’s a sure-fire indicator that summer is upon us, and it sure makes me proud to be living in Kirksville.