Thread by @socialistdogmom

looks like mayor nikuyah walker isn’t here tonight. still traveling after yesterday’s appearance on the view maybe. folks still filing in, but her nameplate isn’t on the dais. vice mayor heather hill just sat down in the center seat.

councilor kathy galvin, probably still sore about not being mayor, made two laps around the chambers trying to schmooze. way too little way too late, kathy.

it’s five past seven. chambers are filling up. everyone’s seated at the dais... except mike signer. where mikey?! did he forget how to get here not that he’s not the mayor?

hill calling us to order now that mike has graced us with his presence. apparently nikuyah is sick, sadly.

comrade dave brought copies of the draft of our people’s platform ✊
more on this later!!

“we do need your involvement because race still matters” kathy galvin, making a very weird announcement. “still” kathy? when has it mattered to you in the past?

galvin is announcing that the bills the city had hoped to see passed at the state level were killed. one bill would’ve allowed the city to regulate open carry at events. jones says toscano hopes to revive it in the house.

jones now responding to matters by the public from last meeting. mary carey’s petition to rename emancipation park will be discussed at the next meeting.
“emancipation” is an ironic name for a park with a statue of a confederate general looming over it.

comrade dave opens with a quote from the radical dr king, not the “santa claus” king.
budgets are moral documents.
civility is code for silencing dissent.
we need jobs program & worker owned co-ops.
🔥🔥

i’m gonna pull the clip of dave’s comment later tonight when the video goes up. he always brings wisdom & passion to the podium, speaking truth to power.

michael: $2.5mil in capital improvement plan for public housing over next 5yrs. this amount can’t be spent until the end of 5yrs & amt is not based on any specific need. compare to $4mil for belmont bridge, $10mil for parking structures. crescent halls is almost unliveable NOW.

dave & michael both emphasize the need for risk taking, breaking the status quo, to do what’s right & what’s needed.

“i know some of you found the last meeting very uncomfortable, but i found it refreshing”
“i felt like i was finally being treated like an adult”
@Jalane_Schmidt addressing the first *public* mayoral election on jan 2nd & need for continued transparency

reverend don gathers at the mic addressing the coded meaning of “civility.” public comment is lit tonight y’all 🔥🔥🔥✊

“this is the new norm. nothing else should be expected because nothing else is acceptable.” don, on the “angry mob,” as we’ve been called.
“when our ancestors opposed slavery, they were shot. when they marched, they were beaten with nightsticks.” there is no acceptable protest.

“demonstrate the same amount of concern for residents as you do for businesses.” another theme tonight: catering to businesses over people has got to stop.

white guy talking about “ways to build trust.” forgive my skepticism here. he gets his 3 minutes though.

ok, he’s talking about participatory budgeting! this is good stuff. rebuild trust by letting citizens decide how money is spent. he cites a few cities who already do this.
says comprehensive plan process must have more community involvement.

this speaker put “free speech” as her topic on the signup. that always makes me uneasy. opens by saying how great it is to see two women (walker & hill) in charge.

her primary concern is the state of crescent hall — it’s unsafe & falling apart. elderly & disabled residents are not safe. this is a common concern. fucking fix this!!!!!

her free speech complaint surprised me. she says people are upset because they aren’t being RESPECTED. that previous councils didn’t cut people off, had rapport & respect, so things were more civil. this seems obvious, but they need to hear it.

paul long, who ran in the last council race, at the mic talking about public transit. we spend so much on consultants (cites heaphy’s 350k) and council always finds THAT money, but the can’t find funding for public transit. has a specific plan for improving buses.

mary carey at the mic talking about the burst pipe & sewage issue at crescent halls. she is ROASTING wes bellamy, calling him an opportunist. he swoops in after the fact to take credit, but where was he when it happened? she’s not a city employee, why is she handling this?

i’ve never been to crescent halls, but from housing authority meetings, council meetings, etc i’ve been hearing about this infamous trash can catching drips from a leaky ceiling FOR MONTHS! why isn’t this being addressed?

someone on the housing authority board told residents that if they didn’t take so many baths, they wouldn’t have a leak. crescent halls doesn’t even *have* bathtubs, only standup showers.
but how dare poor people take baths, right?

“if we can’t take money from all these consulting studies that we do and fix the damn plumbing then we are nothing more than a basket of deplorables” ✊nancy
crescent halls is public housing for elderly & disabled folks. it’s past its life expectancy. this is appalling.

wes bellamy now reading a statement from the head of the housing board re: crescent halls. detailed explanation of plumbing intervention... it honestly sounds like they are blaming residents for what happened.

good news, though, they deployed air freshener to deal with the sewage smell. what a fucking metaphor, right? just cover the stink of your hatred for the poor with a light coat of paint or a glade plugin & demand that they be grateful.

wes’ tone in reading these explanations about what’s wrong at crescent halls is... really upsetting. he’s scolding us? what a weird, terrible way to assure us that everything is fine. and everything is NOT FUCKING FINE AT CRESCENT HALLS!

kathy addresses paul’s comment in public transit by saying ridership is down. but... it’s down because it’s not good? if the bus came more often, more predictably, on better routes, more people would ride it. that seems obvious. they’re adding it to a work session agenda.

signer is singing a sad song about business owners. “a lot of these restaurant owners, it’s the only restaurant they own.”
oh dear how sad.

voting on the consent agenda... but their voting buttons are linked to the wrong seats. passed unanimously regardless, but a passing moment of levity/incompetence anyway.

ah i kinda feel bad for the boring guy trying to give a powerpoint about reservoirs. a bunch of people got up and left after public comment. absolutely no one is listening, including council. kathy’s fake listening face is pretty impressive, though. years of practice.

i admit, i stepped out for a minute during the water powerpoint and missed the first minute or three of wes reading his proposal. it’s in the agenda though. it just sounds like a mess of times, not a lot of content.

at the end of the weird ramble of times, mary carey yelled “say it again?” 😂

galvin starts with a personal complaint. she would be unable to attend closed sessions if they were any earlier. she’s concerned the raised dais makes dialogue impossible? she could just come sit down here then.

now she’s meetingsplaining the difference between a work session and a business meeting. apparently a town hall would have to come before a work session would have to come before a meeting. fair enough. not sure why this is being presented as a reason we can’t do this?

wes seemed confused about galvin’s response. now signer is talking. it sounds like he’s agreeing... but he’s using his “here’s why you’re wrong” voice. i’m very confused.

they closed their comments with a firm commitment to figure it out later. typical. now for public comment on the future of public comment.
city government is a very boring snake eating its very boring tail. bureaucratic ouroboros.

oh this lady is so, so upset that people were “subjected to booing, heckling... even profanity!”
if all you hear is the profanity in our words, you’re not listening.

paul long suggests the speaking limit be raised from 3 to 4 or 5 minutes or allow the mayor to use some discretion to extend time.

paul long says he’s been attending meetings for years, never saw “incivility” until two years ago (when mike became mayor).
“if you want respect you have to give respect”
“if you have 6 or 8 police in here, that’s intimidating”

“politics is a contact sport. if you can’t take some criticism, you’re in the wrong position.”
“we all need to grow up and not be thin skinned. i’ve been booed a lot. i’m from philadelphia. in philadelphia we even boo santa claus.”
damn i wish he’d won instead of heather.

“if fifteen people speak for three minutes, that’s 45 minutes. if signer mansplains for half an hour, that eats up a lot of time.”
DAVE. dave i’m in love. 🔥❤️

dave proposes an online public comment system like the one used in asheville, nc.
agendas should be released earlier. council’s calendars should be public.
we need radical transparency. 🔥

“people are up here every week begging for their humanity”
the fastest way to civility is by serving people before businesses!
yes comrade. yes we will be civil when we are treated with empathy & when we have equity

what is this guy talking about? rethinking civic engagement as theater? “theater of the oppressed.”
i have no idea what this is supposed to mean but it exhausts me.

hi, will the person who yelled ‘santa is capitalism trash’ please come to our @CvilleDSA chapter meeting tomorrow/be my friend?

speaker requesting captions/sign language & spanish language agendas. also suggested streaming the meeting on facebook live (in addition to public access tv) — this would definitely boost viewership!

walt heinecke is teaching a “citizenship & engagement” course at uva... he begs council to give him a good example 🔥

he asks why their “open to the public” retreat is so far away, so inaccessible. it reveals how they feel about public engagement & their (lack of) commitment to fixing it.

stop turning off cameras, eliminate 3 minute rule, allow council to respond to comments, expand # of speakers...
these seem like easy steps to take.

many speakers take issue with wes bellamy’s proposed time change. meeting at 5:30 or 6 means many people won’t be able to get here. meeting start at 7 and go really late... but if we split comment to a different night or something, it’d be easy to meet 7-9 2x/week or so

several speakers have also brought up that two years ago, council stopped letting people finish their sentence at the end of their time. they just speak over you, shout you down. it’s disrespectful. (signer & galvin we’re elected two years ago... not a coincidence)

a lot of talking about talking about deciding to talk about it later. this is meaningless.
problem: the meeting would be too long.
solution: SPLIT IT INTO TWO MEETINGS. THERE ARE MORE DAYS THAN MONDAYS Y’ALL

i’m actually still sitting here in this meeting just wondering what on earth happened to everyone in this room that led us to this place.

a lot of this got pushed for discussion at the council retreat this thurs-fri.
i’ll be in court thurs morning supporting a comrade who’s standing up to harassment by nazis, but otherwise i’ll be at that retreat, making them uncomfortable with my stern, socialist gaze. 🌹✊