Thread by @socialistdogmom

hell of a lot more people here now that we’re right on the eve of passing this budget. where were y’all the last couple months? 🤷‍♀️

grabbed the last copy of tonight’s powerpoint. lucky me!
only just started... usually it’s kathy holding us up, but she was only 5 minutes late. still no sign of wes, but he was on crutches last night. may be having trouble getting here.

up for discussion tonight

they always talk about how the cityspace meeting room is better than council chambers... more personable, less hierarchical, they say. but here’s the thing: there aren’t enough seats and there aren’t microphones. this is not an improvement, @CvilleCityHall.

kathy wants to hold off on funding the youth internship expansion until their newly hired youth program coordinator has had a chance to weigh in on it, that she hasn’t seen the data. kathy, i was here when this program’s director said they turned away 25% of applicants last year!

a strong theme here is “let’s not decide on this until we’ve had an exhaustive bureaucratic review,” which interestingly never gets brought up until what should be the final discussion. never early in the process. kicking the goddamn can.

i thought there were rules against private communication between folks of the dais during public meetings? there was a bit of a distraction as wes entered on his crutches, during which nikuyah, city mgr maurice jones, and asst cty mgr leslie had a private, whispered conversation.

now kathy is worried that giving JAUNT bus drivers a piddly wage increase “without a compensation study” is a bad idea. what’s to study? what data do you need to justify inching closing to a living wage, which this still isn’t? and why didn’t you bring this up months ago?

YEAH NO ONE CAN HEAR. council just called out to some city employee in the row behind me to answer a question... he couldn’t answer it right away because he couldn’t hear a word of the proceedings and didn’t know what he was being asked.

i’m really puzzled by kathy’s worldview. it’s like she believes anything she doesn’t personally know just isn’t known yet. she’s always calling for more STUDIES. but then discounts the statements made by career professionals & subject matter experts 🤷‍♀️

we’re halfway through slide 7 of 30, 45 minutes into this “two hour” meeting. this is going so well.

wes wants to set aside the $52k for the human rights commission so it’s preserved if they do decide to allocate it. it doesn’t sound like they’re actually talking about allocating it... just talking about planning to talk about allocating it.

they’ve already approved the $38k to move an existing part time position to full time. it sounds like this proposal would ELIMINATE THAT change, and instead add a new full time position. i assume, anyway. $52k isn’t enough for a full time, salaried, benefitted attorney.

charlene green, manager of the office of human rights, doesn’t want to rush into a decision... or even talk about making a decision tonight. she said they’ll be more information on the 16th. i wonder if she meant the 15th? that’s the next human rights commission meeting.

ok now it seems that “setting aside” unallocated money isn’t a thing. things are devolving. lots of cross talk.

ohhhh mike, if you’re gonna make a passive aggressive dig at walt, just use his name! we all know who you’re talking about. not a good look, buddy.

i knew it. the spca is just pet jail.

kathy, petulantly: “why are we funding a radio station?” re: the $2250 given to WNRN
she’s worried about why the government is paying for marketing... where was this concern over the $70k given to DBAC?!

a woman from the women’s initiative stands to tell her that they saw a marked increase in their walk-ins after their WNRN public service announcement. literacy volunteers concur. the program helps! kathy backs down, not without another defensive outburst.

huh. a spokesperson for a program being fully defunded just said he’s in support of this year’s budget recommendation. wes double checked that he understands they’re getting no money... he says he’s not here to argue. then why are we talking about it?!

why is mike raising concerns about church/state issues on a program they ready decided not to fund? why can’t we move on?

don’t get me wrong, i share his concerns about state-funded “christian counseling.” BUT IT ISN’T BEING FUNDED THIS YEAR. LET’S GO.

this meeting definitely isn’t going to end on time, is it?

now they have to decide which of these programs to fund... but they’re gonna take a little detour to hear from folks in the audience with MORE last minute funding requests. guys, this process started MONTHS AGO. quit it.

it just doesn’t seem fair or efficient to open it up to pleas tonight.

https://twitter.com/jalane_schmidt/status/979468887724118016?s=21

first speaker is from a music program, defending their application review rating of poor.

this speaker isn’t with an organization, isn’t asking for money, just has criticism of the process. thanks for your input, old lady i’ve literally never seen before.

another speaker advocating for SOAR - this program connects folks with long term homelessness & disabilities with services & SSDI. these folks are heavy utilizers of ambulance & ER services — even if you can’t fund it because you care, fund it because it’s fiscally responsible!

“how do you not fund that?” wes asks after a passionate plea from a former resident & now-employee of a women’s addiction treatment house.

dr. sally hudson reminding folks that the ABRT rating system is better suited for evaluating mature programs or newer programs run by mature agencies. some of these newer programs with lower ratings may be misleading!

another member of the same committee followed up with a comment that they should still make their decisions BASED on these flawed ratings? but change them for next time? for... fairness?

she’s concerned that if they make a decision that departs from the ABRT recommendations, it’s inconsistent and unfair and devalues the work of the committee. but they are RECOMMENDATIONS. council has to use judgement to determine which requests to fund. fair isn’t always right.

nikuyah making the good points. we have massive disparities. maybe the system we’ve been using to determine which programs to fund isn’t great?
says the point of a good direct service non profit is to work yourself out of a job & we’re not seeing that. cville has 700 nonprofits!

a woman from a nonprofit est. in 2006 started talking about how hard it was for them when they couldn’t get city funding for the first few years... i thought she was gonna come out in support of adjusting the standards to support newer programs. NOPE.

watching a bunch of non profit directors beg for money & passive aggressively cut each other down is... gross. capitalism is gross. the non profit industrial complex is gross.

look, i don’t mean for this to sound ageist, but people over 40 are truly fucking awful at whispering. the older you get, the louder your whispering becomes. just text each other. 20 senior citizens whispering is louder than the presenter 20 feet away from me.

the public defender who so horribly tore apart that rape victim on the stand not too long ago is VERY LOUDLY WHISPERING RIGHT BEHIND ME.

this was supposed to be over half an hour ago but instead they’re having an IDENTICAL conversation about property tax relief grants from literally every meeting they’ve had about the budget over the past... four months? five? longer, maybe.

as a prolific heckler, am i a hypocrite when i shoot dirty looks at old ladies whispering so loudly i can’t hear the meeting? i don’t think so, but i can see why you might feel that way.
heckling is PARTICIPATION. if you need to chat with your pals, there’s a lobby.

huh. meeting adjourned. nothing decided. many cans kicked down their respective roads. not really ready for the reading of the budget at monday’s council meeting, are we?