A Special Meeting of the City Council was scheduled from 1pm on Friday, May 16th. What was the rush? Where was the fire? Was it really necessary to schedule this meeting for that time? Couldn't this have waited for the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting?
Councilor Steven Camara was absent from the meeting as he was attending the funeral of his cousin and godfather. As a courtesy to his colleague, Councilor Ray Hague moved to postpone the meeting. To paraphrase, in opposition to the motion, Councilor Pat Casey stated how other meetings have taken place where Councilors were absent and that the show should go on. The motion was defeated.
Councilor Hague then made a motion to recess for 30 minutes so that he could call Councilor Camara to inform him that the motion was defeated and to give him some time to attend the meeting. The motion was defeated.
The third motion that was made was to suspend the rules and allow for citizen input. Again, Councilor Casey stated that she had heard enough - there was public input at other meetings already. Councilor Leo Pelletier advocated for citizen input not only to hear from those in attendance, but also in a practical sense, to provide additional time for the arrival of his colleague. Again, the motion to allow citizen input was defeated.
The next motion came from Councilor Ray Hague who requested that the issue be referred to the Committee on Ordinances and Legislation. 6 nays, 2 yeas, 1 absent - The motion was defeated.
The only successful motion of the meeting came from Councilor Pat Casey who moved to adopt, and was seconded by Councilor Linda Pereira. The order was adopted 6 yays, 2 nays, 1 absent.
Yays- Pat Casey, Tom Kozak, Michael Lund, Linda Pereira, Cathy Ann Viveiros, Joe Camara
Nays- Ray Hague, Leo Pelletier
Absent- Steve Camara
The image above is a Referendum Petition to overturn the vote of the City Council. To be successful, we must obtain nearly 6,000 valid signatures of registered voters. A system that has been in place for nearly 70 years was overturned by the City Council in less than 40 days.
The issue now is the democratic process. How do we respond to a legislative body that absolutely refused to reschedule the meeting, to recess for 30 minutes, or to allow citizen input?
With a limited amount of time, only 20 days, we'll need some help in gathering signatures of registered voters.
How can I help?
Click on the image above and you can print a copy of the petition. Democracy is about citizen action and the petition was designed to encourage such participation. The petition has 6 slots, which means with your signature, you can easily gather 5 additional signatures of relatives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who are also registered voters.
What if I don't have a printer?
Simply send me an email at fallrivercommunity@gmail.com and I will deliver a petition to you. This is going to be a very user-friendly process. We can meet at your home, work, coffee shop, post office, etc. Just tell me how many petition forms you want and where and when to meet and I will respond to confirm.
What do I do with a completed petition?
Great Job!! Please send me an email at fallrivercommunity@gmail.com and we can arrange a time and place where I can pick up the petition.
How can I get a list of registered voters so that I can canvass my neighborhood?
If you want to canvass your neighborhood but don't want to waste time knocking on doors where there are no registered voters, send me an email at fallrivercommunity@gmail.com and let me know what streets you want and I will print them for you or send them to you as an attachment.
10 comments:
I'm in and will canvass my neighborhood.
Anonymous,
I can give you a list of the registered voters in your neighborhood so that you don't waste your time knocking on unnecessary homes and collecting invalid signatures.
Second, knowing where you canvass is important to the organization so we don't have someone else canvassing the same neighborhood later.
fallrivercommunity@gmail.com
I just printed out a couple copies... I will be getting signatures from my family this weekend!
Thanks FRC for making this so easy for us!
I am totally IN!!!
Copies printed and signatures coming! This is democracy at its best.
Something his honor does not know much about but will be finding out.
ON ANOTHER DEMOCRACY SUBJECT
I just read this in the HN
Do we know who the land owners
are on the waterfront????
Many years ago developers{ a certain few}bought up the waterfront,the railroad rights and most of the downtown area for casino gambling It did not come to fruition.They drove out tenants and allowed property to decay for their own benifit. they built condos for the well off and said to hell with the rest of us.they are still here and still in control
Is it Lund, how do we find out??
You can find out who owns any property in Fall River through the property info link on the city website. http://www.fallriverma.org/property_info.asp
We should thank Bob Correia and Joe Camara. They have ignited a spark in some of us. By their actions many of us have come to realize that it is time that we take back our city government.
So I say, thank you Bob and Joe!
I'm sorry, by why don't you all wake up? If you all cared about the democratic process so much, there'd be more than 5 people at the regular City Council meetings.
The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot of problems with this city, and the one thing the Fire Fighters get all upset about and decide to get involved with, actually is a good idea - the Chief should be an appointed position, hence the voters being able to hold the Apointer responsible for a bad choice.
Where is the democratic process when it comes to forcing slumlords to shape up, cleaning our streets, or holding local developers to the same standard that other cities do? Nowhere to be found.
So please spare me all this "democratic process" crap. The City Council did what they needed to do for once to make a decision that better suits the voters. Having input so that dozens of firefighters could berate the Councilors would have been a waste of time - the morons on the Council wouldn't be there in the first place if firefighters (the ones that actually live in our city) didn't support them. Linda Perreira? Please, the fact that this woman can even work in the public sphere without any sense of shame should be a sign enough that the apocalypse is nigh on us.
To Negative Nelly,
Do you attend the regular City Council meetings?
Second, it's not surprising that people become more involved on issues that affect them. Would Morton parents case as much if it was Henry Lord that was closing? Would Morton parents attend a rally in support of Henry Lord parents?
As for the democratic process for developers, there is the Zoning Board of Appeals which is an open meeting. There are several people who attend to show their displeasure with the frequency in which they grant variances.
There really wasn't much demand or support from the public to change the hiring process of the Fire Chief. If the members of the City Council continue to think that they did the right thing, then perhaps this can go on the ballot so that the voters can decide.
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