The City posts its announcements of meetings and other public notices on the city hall window. Very few people see these notices since there is little traffic on Front Street. Generally, the notices consist of agendas for scheduled council meetings, and these are usually not posted until the business day before the meeting -- but this 24-hour time period does meet the minimum posting requirements under the open meeting law.
The regular monthly council meetings are held on the first Monday of each month unless that day is a holiday. The agenda for the regular meetings are prepared the Friday before the meetings. These agendas and the minutes of the meetings may be posted on this website, under "City News," if they are sent by the city clerk to the website administrator; but there are times when the administrator has to request this information. The agendas for special council meetings are rarely posted on the website, and the same is true for the agendas of committee meetings.
Therefore, if any citizens want to monitor meetings or to know what is on an agenda for a meeting, they have to check the window of city hall on a daily basis. Why does the city make it so inconvenient? There is no prohibition or law preventing the city from posting meeting notices several days ahead of time on this website. Also, remember when the city government posted much of its business information on the glass enclosed bulletin board in the post office? Why was this stopped four years ago? Because the city government officials, at that time, did not want to keep the public fully informed of what was taking place at city hall.
In contrast, the E-B School Board and Administration posts all sorts of information on its website. The School Board meeting agendas as well as Committee meeting agendas are posted on the school’s website several days ahead of time. The school board and the school administration are very proactive in keeping the public informed.
Since we have some new council members, perhaps these members could come up with a better system of informing the public about the activities of the city government. I attended a Personnel Committee meeting last week, and I was very impressed with how Doug Greenlee and Wendell Terrell conducted the meeting. They were very open in their discussion and willing to share information. But, the only reason I knew about the meeting is because I had gone to city hall the previous day and saw the posting of the agenda on the city hall window. There were no newspaper reporters at that meeting so it may be possible that the newspapers were not even notified of the meeting Also, FYI, the city does not post the minutes of committee meetings, and many times the public is not even aware that these meetings have taken place.
There is little doubt that the city government officials can do a better job of keeping the public informed! But, the question is – will they?