When the mayor goes back on her word and changea what she instructed the city clerk to do, shouldn’t someone — City Clerk Crowder, presumably, the city manager or the city attorney — be responsible for upholding what was set forth earlier?
WHY ALL THE DISRESPECT AT OUR City Council meetings toward residents and others who show up expecting to speak during the citizen comment period and then being unkindly denied, even when the mayor has publicly assured them that they will be?
Shame on you, mayor, Mayor Sepi Shyne.
At last week’s meeting, at one point Mayor Shyne asked City Clerk Melissa Crowder how many more citizen comment speakers remained to be heard.
“Fifteen more,” said Crowder.
“Let’s hear all of them then,” the mayor said.
All of us, watching the meeting live and presumably, in attendance surely trusted, this was what would happen.
But it is not.
It was after all the labor union Unite Here people spoke that a break occurred. Then, after the break, there was a distinct change in what occurred from what the mayor promised would happen.
“Let’s hear all of them then.” Hadn’t Mayor Sepi Shyne said that? “Let’s hear all of them then.”
And they were still seven or more speakers remaining to be heard.
This is not a good look of local city democracy for our West Hollywood city and City Council.
When the mayor went back on her word and changed what she instructed the city clerk to do, shouldn’t someone — City Clerk Crowder, presumably, the city manager or the city attorney —be responsible for upholding what was set forth earlier.
Someone in authority needed to actually speak up at that moment to remind the mayor of what she set forth and agreed to.
This reeks of authoritarian unfairness, not to mention, putting in question the integrity of the mayor’s word. It makes our city’s leaders appear unreliable, and it looks and feels bad for the business owners and others who were promised to speak.
For the city clerk to shirk her duties and not speak up against the promise of the mayor is a horrible misjustice and bad form. This the same city clerk who has no problem all the other times being the task master and interrupting to make sure things are followed through. And it’s the same city manager and city attorney who also have no problem speaking up and interrupting to get everyone back on the same page.
If the mayor and council believe that being disrespectful is how they want to operate and run our meetings, then our city is in complete downfall.
Jerome Cleary is a longtime West Hollywood resident and business owner. He can be contacted at JeromeCleary@aol.com
