Term Limits Sprouts wings in Middletown

Sounds like an excellent idea ! I told someone the other night at the meeting this is suppose to be a democracy and none of these city people are royalty. By the number of years some have served you would think they were kings or princes.

brilliant analogy hermes

and what exactly makes one a qualified candidate??

Council can overturn any recommendation from the Charter Committee. They won't go for the term limit thing and will throw it out immediately as that would limit their time in office knowing that they would almost be assured of re-election time and time as most run unopposed. Why approve limited time in office and give others a chance to occupy their throne behind the council desk on Tuesday nights? Furthermore, if there is a disruption in the continuing destruction of the city and having new people trying to fix this cluster, when (if) they do return to council, it will be that much harder for them to undo the good that has been done.

Pacman- In all honesty, what is the likelihood of the citizens banning together to petition anything in this town? IMO there is too much apathy among the people to get anything accomplished opposing city hall. He--, we on this forum who agree, don't want to get together to discuss issues to take to action (petition- whatever) and we all show passion about changing things. Imagine trying to involve the people who are not a part of this "passionate" forum and asking them for petition support. A waste of time with the current "I could care less" attitude most people take in town. JMO

Good point on the organizing comment. The answer to this comment is the key element to begin the cleaning out of the current deadwood and repairing the damage done. Anybody got any ideas on how to get the people who want change to participate? Several attempts have been made to no avail. Usually doesn't seem to be any interest after the first meeting. Mr. Kidd tried it at the old Montgomery Ward building several years ago and more recently, the group that met on Sundays at the Library tried to organize. Both didn't last.

Pacman- we had agenda items at the Library meetings. The agenda items included the streets ( I brought some info from the street repair committee once for discussion), finances within the city, -- things that you are suggesting. We usually had 5 or 6 people attend. On one occasion, Scott-Jones and Marconi showed up and we had an interesting talk. Spider and Mike might remember that. The group became "disinterested" in meeting and just dissolved. I guess we all thought that meeting for the sole purpose of discussion was ok, but no one came up with a "ok, what do we do with our discussions and what is the next level to take them to". It just never materialized into something beyond the talk. Kind of like this forum. What do you say folks- do you all want to meet some Saturday to discuss how to take all these comments and put them to good use? November election time is getting closer and we still haven't talked about how we'll support the new people to oust the incumbants. They'll have their usual backers who normally are strong enough to put them over the top. We need to convince the voters outside the club to outnumber the club vote to seat these new people. Otherwise- we're stuck with the deadwood again.

Vet

Spiderjohn
I agree with you…..however for some reason it doesn’t work in this town. I have always liked the “lead by example” and "gather as you go"…..however it doesn’t seem to work in this town. The public committees and boards are lead my council members and the people have NO POWER or VOICE to help produce change. The will of the people is not being heard...thus the apathy of the people. How many times have we all heard "Why should I serve on that committee again?"

LEADERSHIP starts at the top....

If you form a committee for change pick two projects

1 short term and 1 long term.
Then make a detailed list of how to solve these problems.
Each member of the commtitee must have an active role.
We will need all the brain power we can get from young and old to solve these problems and bring change to Middletown.

Spider -

I ask that you consider the planned demise of the HUD Consolidated Planning Committee.  You know some of these housing industry professionals and concerned target area neighborhood residents.  They were put out to pasture by the power brokers!  What on God's green earth leads you to believe that the occupants of One Donham Plaza really believe in meaningful citizen participation?  This time, I respectfully disagree with you.  I know first-hand of what I speak!!

General Patton

 

 

spiderjohn wrote:   The "in your face name-calling threatening approach" seldom works and hasn't worked here.   jmo

Spider,