An unspoken but fairly obvious sentiment of the members of the Bossier City Council was the “relief” of getting the 2010 General Fund Budget process behind them -- and looking forward to keeping tabs on the city’s fiscal health on a monthly basis in the coming months.

Noted here previously, that fiduciary tab-keeping was always available to council members interested enough to regularly visit with City Finance Director Joe Buffington.  It was only a matter of taking advantage of his very open-door policy. 

In the long run, however, a monthly council review of city finances probably will be beneficial all the way around, particularly if the city’s residents/taxpayers are interested enough to keep up with the continuing course of the city government conversation.

In the meantime, and between those monthly reviews, perhaps council members could schedule some time to revisit Resolution Number 35 of 1988, which is titled “A Resolution Amending Resolution 12 of 1981 for the Organization of the City Council, Providing Rules for the Council, and Otherwise Providing With Respect Thereto.  
Essentially, this resolution enumerates the council’s procedural rules.

Those rules include a section titled “Members of the Public Addressing the Council.”

It would have been helpful if council members had availed themselves of this resource (similar to regularly availing themselves of the city finances resource), when during the council’s budget meetings, numerous citizens wanted to address the council about various issues concerning the budget.  Instead, and at the beginning of those meetings, it was suggested by Council President Don “Bubba” Williams, that the council’s practice was to allow members of the public to speak for three minutes, and that the preference was for three people to speak on each side of an issue.

Unfortunately, that practice isn’t part of the council’s published procedural rules.

Instead, there’s a five-minute speaking limit (which can be extended on Council permission) and there is no mention of a limit to the number of speakers on any side of any issue.

On the other hand, the same section of these procedural rules also directs:  “After a motion is made by the Council, no person shall address the Council unless the person has notified the City Clerk in advance of their desire to speak as provided in the City Charter, or upon securing the permission of the Council to do so.”

Unfortunately again, there’s no reference in the City Charter to this members of the public addressing the Council; instead the Charter references the Council’s procedural rules, of which, evidently, council members were unaware.
Nit-picky, yes – but at the same time details count.  And that goes for the Council’s awareness of its own procedural rules as well as city finances.

Hopefully we can look forward to the scheduling of a Council workshop to address a review and up-date of the procedural rules that govern the Council’s meetings.  Perhaps Council members will also be thoughtful enough to single out the resulting amended resolution for posting on the city’s website so that anyone who wants to address the Council is aware of the rules for doing so.

And it probably goes without saying that Bossier City residents are even more hopeful that Council members will keep us all informed about the city’s financial future.

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