Stan-Lee
Regular Member
imported post
A QUICK REPORT[/b]
[size=[font="Times New Roman"]Oakland][/size] City Council Meeting[/font][/b]
February 16, 2010
As expected, [size=Oakland][/size]'s City Council enacted the three anti-gun ordinances that came up for second reading tonight.
The meeting, scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m., was delayed due to an earlier budget meeting that ran well past its allotted time. As we were to eventually find out, 81 people signed up to speak at the budget meeting. All were given their full three minutes. (Bear with me here, this minor factoid is important.)
The regular council meeting finally started at about 8:45 p.m. I'm proud to say that all the pro-gun activists that arrived in time for the expected six o'clock start stayed to the bitter end. It was a long and tiresome wait standing around outside the council chambers.
I would estimate that we had approximately 60 people there, most from Alameda County Members' Council and Calguns. Thirty-one filled out speaker cards.
Our people were well-dressed, well behaved and well spoken. We made our point well several times over.
However, because the Council had already made up its mind that these laws would pass, they used the late starting time to arbitrarily decide that we would each have only one minute to speak. Restricting speaking time to one minute is not only wrong, it severely penalized and threw off track people that came with prepared remarks.
Regardless, our people were eloquent and persuasive. Some used time generously ceded by other speakers so they could more effectively make their points.
Our first speaker asked us all to rise so the council could see how many stood in opposition. The result was amazing. Some on the council actually had the grace to look startled.
But we were talking to closed minds. The backroom deal had been done. The payola was in.
San Mateo County Board of Supervisors member Rose Jacobs Gibson, who first proposed these laws for [size=San Mateo][/size] County, was there. The fact that the NRA shot her down on her home turf didn't stop her from trying elsewhere. Jacobs Gibson also serves on the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), and that gives her a strident voice to push LCAV's water around the rest of the Bay Area.
With her at tonight's meeting were several of her LCAV masters. They spent a lot of time smirking. It was telling that they sat in a row together, and Jacobs Gibson sat alone right behind them.
Besides the one minute speaking constraint, two other procedural errors should be mentioned. These ordinances were lumped together as item 10.4-CC on the agenda's consent calendar. As was pointed out to the solons sitting on the council, any time you have 31 people speaking against a proposed ordinance, it does not belong on the consent calendar. The consent calendar is normally reserved for non-controversial items, or, to quote from [size=Oakland][/size]'s own agenda, items that "[are] not controversial, and [do] not have a high level of public interest..."
Sixty people showing up to object to something, and half of them trying to be very vocal about it, indicates that there may actually be some controversy and possibly even some public interest involved.
Second, following the council's rules, access to speaker cards was cut off at 8:00 p.m. The meeting did not start until almost 9:00 p.m. Several people who had changed their minds about speaking suddenly found themselves without the wherewithal to do so.
All in all, it was another shabby performance by a shady governmental entity.
May it cost them dearly in the lawsuits sure to come.
Coda[/b]
This is a critical reminder that we all need to monitor our local towns' city council agendas assiduously. It is especially important that we do so here in [size=Alameda][/size] County, because this LCAV generated and ABAG facilitated cancer is sure to spread.
Paul VP, NRA MC of [size=Alameda][/size] County
A QUICK REPORT[/b]
[size=[font="Times New Roman"]Oakland][/size] City Council Meeting[/font][/b]
February 16, 2010
As expected, [size=Oakland][/size]'s City Council enacted the three anti-gun ordinances that came up for second reading tonight.
The meeting, scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m., was delayed due to an earlier budget meeting that ran well past its allotted time. As we were to eventually find out, 81 people signed up to speak at the budget meeting. All were given their full three minutes. (Bear with me here, this minor factoid is important.)
The regular council meeting finally started at about 8:45 p.m. I'm proud to say that all the pro-gun activists that arrived in time for the expected six o'clock start stayed to the bitter end. It was a long and tiresome wait standing around outside the council chambers.
I would estimate that we had approximately 60 people there, most from Alameda County Members' Council and Calguns. Thirty-one filled out speaker cards.
Our people were well-dressed, well behaved and well spoken. We made our point well several times over.
However, because the Council had already made up its mind that these laws would pass, they used the late starting time to arbitrarily decide that we would each have only one minute to speak. Restricting speaking time to one minute is not only wrong, it severely penalized and threw off track people that came with prepared remarks.
Regardless, our people were eloquent and persuasive. Some used time generously ceded by other speakers so they could more effectively make their points.
Our first speaker asked us all to rise so the council could see how many stood in opposition. The result was amazing. Some on the council actually had the grace to look startled.
But we were talking to closed minds. The backroom deal had been done. The payola was in.
San Mateo County Board of Supervisors member Rose Jacobs Gibson, who first proposed these laws for [size=San Mateo][/size] County, was there. The fact that the NRA shot her down on her home turf didn't stop her from trying elsewhere. Jacobs Gibson also serves on the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), and that gives her a strident voice to push LCAV's water around the rest of the Bay Area.
With her at tonight's meeting were several of her LCAV masters. They spent a lot of time smirking. It was telling that they sat in a row together, and Jacobs Gibson sat alone right behind them.
Besides the one minute speaking constraint, two other procedural errors should be mentioned. These ordinances were lumped together as item 10.4-CC on the agenda's consent calendar. As was pointed out to the solons sitting on the council, any time you have 31 people speaking against a proposed ordinance, it does not belong on the consent calendar. The consent calendar is normally reserved for non-controversial items, or, to quote from [size=Oakland][/size]'s own agenda, items that "[are] not controversial, and [do] not have a high level of public interest..."
Sixty people showing up to object to something, and half of them trying to be very vocal about it, indicates that there may actually be some controversy and possibly even some public interest involved.
Second, following the council's rules, access to speaker cards was cut off at 8:00 p.m. The meeting did not start until almost 9:00 p.m. Several people who had changed their minds about speaking suddenly found themselves without the wherewithal to do so.
All in all, it was another shabby performance by a shady governmental entity.
May it cost them dearly in the lawsuits sure to come.
Coda[/b]
This is a critical reminder that we all need to monitor our local towns' city council agendas assiduously. It is especially important that we do so here in [size=Alameda][/size] County, because this LCAV generated and ABAG facilitated cancer is sure to spread.
Paul VP, NRA MC of [size=Alameda][/size] County
