Have you ever attended or spoke at a meeting of your city/town council or county legislature?

30 comments

1. Yes it was a waste of time (attended)

2. Yes, I go from time to time to speak in support of high density housing projects to try to counteract the NIMBYs

3. Yes, asked for a room for a nonprofit and they provided it for free.
   Also when Lyft was new I was there in a different city.

4. No, I don’t waste time going to such things when most of the issues were already determined with local elections. Other issues are usually so minor that I wouldn’t care either way what happens like adding a roundabout or making a new curfew time for teens.

5. Yes, many times, doing my best to counteract the NIMBYs who mobilize against any worthwhile initiative.

6. Yes I’ve attended a bunch, only spoke a couple times.

7. Nope.

8. nope

9. Yep, many times.

   Democracy is frustrating but it is essential to participate in.

   Edit: seriously impressed how many folks attend to counteract the more conservative voices of our society (NIMBYs etc) good for you.

10. I’ve attended at least a few hundred local government meetings, spoke at some, and have been part of the presentation team for many others. It was part of my job for a long time.

    I’ve attended as a citizen a handful of times.

11. Yep. I was on a school team that had just won the state competition for something, but we lacked sufficient funds to attend the international tournament, so we went to the town council to ask for money. (They said yes.)

12. No, Most of them seem to be in the middle of the work day when I’m at work. Not very helpful.

13. I’ve never attended but I used to watch them on TV, they are broadcast on a local channel.

14. Yup, multiple times and a couple as an attorney. Another couple times just as a concerned citizen. Smallish New England towns are great for local governance. Even if you don’t get your way they usually listen to you and it doesn’t take many people opposing or supporting a position to get things done.

    I recommend anyone that has the time or inclination to at least one or two times go and see how the sausage is made.

15. I went to a city council meeting on Tuesday this week. Ended up getting my picture taken (in a small group) with the mayor. I’ve written emails to the council but not spoken in the meetings yet. I like knowing what is happening in my city and being a part of that process as the city grows so that is why we go to the meetings.

16. Yes. I’ve never spoken, but I’ve attended some town halls.

17. Went to an Irrigation District meeting to voice my support for them taking over electricity distribution from PG&E.

18. My old hometown was run by Town Meeting. I never spoke at it, though.

19. I used to go to town meetings in my home town all the time.

20. Attended a meeting held by the State of California to consider expanding professional licensure to software developers in the State. (That is, to legally write software, you’d have to be licensed by the State of California.) This was back in the late 1980’s–and if it had passed I image it would have been an utter disaster.

    I went to the meeting and spoke. Turned out the effort was being pushed–if you can believe this–by *civil engineers* who thought “well, if we’re using software tools to do our job, then the developers of those tools–and by extension, all software developers–need to be licensed as **civil engineers.**” (I fucking shit you not.)

    Which of course morphed into a special “software engineering license” or “software architecture license”–they were still bouncing around the term.

    And I remember asking “if that’s the case, why aren’t you requiring slide rule manufacturers to be civil engineers before they are licensed to make slide rules?”

    I would up being called back by the panel–one of whom was the potential sponsor of the bill–to talk for nearly a couple of hours. Those idiots had no idea how my job was done, so I explained my training, how I did my job, the tools I used, the techniques; I explained algorithms and software QA processes and God knows what else. (I recall one of the civil engineers pushing the proposal being red with anger–I guess he wanted to make his stamp on the world and those pesky kids foiled his evil plans or something.)

    I was pleased as punch to learn that the effort died a quiet death. (Though I sincerely do not imagine it was just because of me; I suspect others spoke at other meetings around the state as I did.)

    I also learned how sausage was made.

    And while I do carefully keep track of the local political scene to see if something stupid is coming along on the fringes–because most of how government affects us is in the quiet places few people report on, and not on the loud shit protesters are out there protesting–I resolved **NEVER** to be involved in politics.

    Hanging around politicians–and I’ve done that a few times in my life–tends to lower my intelligence by a handful of points each time I interact with them.

21. Yep, we stopped a funeral home from being put into tje cemetary across the street from us, which would have cut down the trees and shrubs between us and the cemetary.

22. Nah. May be about to change soon since it looks like my city is about to elect an absolute piece of trash mayor, but as of now, no.

23. I have not but I have visited the city council chamber in city hall (they offer free tours) and I know my city councilman

24. Yes, both.

25. Yes, and yes.

26. Yeah I spoke out against a 6 million dollar “renovation” of this allready massive 4 way intersection to make it larger while getting rid of a bunch of trees I used to climb and baseball fields I used to play on.

    Ask me if it worked.

27. Yes, I engendered opposition to, and was the first to speak out against a large parking garage in the center of my town.

    It got a lot of attention and the parking garage was built on the outskirts of downtown (i.e. three blocks away).

28. Yes. There is some undeveloped land adjacent to my neighborhood. A developer was planning to build a fast food restaurant directly behind some of the homes. We rallied the whole neighborhood to speak out against that. They can still build little shops and offices there but no one wanted a fast food drive thru 20 feet behind their brand new home.

29. Yes, several times and a couple of times I spoke during the public comment period.

    You can’t really do jack shit as a person on a federal level but bitching at your mayor or city council because they’re doing something stupid you 100% can get results from.

    I even had my state house rep know me by name because I shot him a couple of emails about stuff in his committee that was relevant to what he was doing at the time. So I got a couple of phone calls through the years.

    What doesn’t work is bitching at city council about the first amendment or national oil usage or something like that. It has to be something they’re actually addressing.

    Politics legit kinda sucks to deal with but local is honestly the best place to spend your time and civic responsibilities because it is the most likely to get results.

30. You have to do this for certain merit badges in the Boy Scouts