Community Meeting Review

On Monday, April 13th, 2009, I visited the Culver City city council meeting, and found that they operate using a council-manager form of government. For a city with a population of about 38,000, this type of governmental structure is fairly common, and I was not surprised to see it in action in a community where the median household income is around $56,000 a year. Culver City is also a culturally rich community with a 60 percent Caucasian population, and a quarter of the residents are either of African American or Asian decent. The mayor, D. Scott Malsin, is one of five members on the council, and his term as mayor is on a rotating basis. Having been to a Hermosa Beach city council meeting with a similar council-manager structure, I knew

The City of Bend, Oregon Government consists of approximately 500 employees across thirteen different divisions. These divisions are Police, Fire, Community Development, Public Works, etc and are all coordinated under the City Manager’s office. Bend’s government style is called a “weak mayor” form of city government, in that the citizens elect a city council, which then elects a mayor from among the council members. The city council and mayor, then hire a City Manager to run the day to day operations of the city. In doing this form of government, the City Manager is not directly accountable to the citizens and can focus on the needs of the city and its employees. At the same time, the City Council can only provide direction to the city manager and is accountable to the citizens. The city employees in this case are led by the city manager as directed by city council. The community leadership environment in this case is established by council to provide direction to the city manager.

In the first amendment, it is stated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the exercise thereof.”. From this, it made clear that the founding fathers’ original intent was for the Government to take a neutral position with respect to religion; the Government was not to favor any one religion over another. “Almighty God we acknowledge our independence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parent, our teachers and our Country. Amen.” In 1951, that prayer was conducted in class every morning in all New York public schools as ordered by New York State Board of Regents; it was called a “nondenominational prayer”. The short prayer was created with the intent of developing students’ moral

One thing of significance that I learned about at the city council meeting was meeting procedure. When I first arrived a pre-meeting workshop about annexation was occurring. After the regular meeting began we started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Next roll call of the council members was taken. Dallas Center has five council members: Mike Kidd, David Bagby, Kurt Pion,. Following roll call was an action to approve the agenda, which was approved. Next up was public communications and concerns. I was surprised that each person only has two minutes to talk about all the issues they

A family partnership meeting (FPM) is a “deliberate and structured approach to involving youth and families in decision-making through a facilitated meeting of family, their identified supports and professionals working with the family” (Family Partnership Meetings, 2013). Virginia Department of Social Services uses FPM to engage families in the decision-making process when a child is at risk of coming into foster care, foster home placement disruption, and permanency planning (Family Partnership Meetings, 2013). With that said, foster parents are considered as professional members of the multidisciplinary team, working together to meet the needs of foster children (Child Welfare League of America, 2008). This

The meeting agenda included a call to order, roll call, reading of the call, pledge of allegiance, some recognition of county members for service, announcements, and a time for public comment. This happened all within the first twenty minutes of the beginning of the meeting. Then the meeting switched over into having a few appearances, talking about department reports, resolutions in the county, ordinances, annual

Of course, during meetings, many questions are sure to arise about the same factors. Most people want know what will be done on roadway conditions, what will be done about the cleaning of the parks, etc. One of the biggest, and very surprising, issues brought up recently by the Common Council is a chicken ordinance for Warsaw. In a unanimous vote, the Warsaw Planning Commission has given their approval to allow chickens within the city limits. However, the Council voted “no” on the ordinance that, if passed, would have allowed a select number of residents to raise and maintain chickens on their property inside the city

The experience going to the council meeting was great and I would imagine that the items on the agenda had a great deal to do with that. The topics I found the most interesting revolved around public nudity, serving alcohol in public, spending grant money, a gun ordinance, and polling the public about being taxed. The agenda item revolving around public nudity took up most of the time. Currently, Eureka doesn't have a ordinance in place to give police authority to arrest citizens who are nude in public when it isn't a sexual act. The chief of police gave example of a person doing Tai Chi in a public park nude. The police were called and couldn't do anything short of asking him to put his clothes on. There was concern among a few council members

On September 9, 2014 I attended the Glendale City Council meeting which was held at the Council Chamber which is located on the 2nd floor of the Glendale City Hall, Room 200, 613 East Broadway, Glendale, California. The meeting commenced at 6 p.m. and lasted for approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes. Several policy proposals were made and discussed in this particular meeting. This paper is aimed at discussing the various policy proposals made and debated at this meeting with a view to establishing whether they are acceptable or unacceptable to the Glendale electorate. It is, however, essential to provide a brief background of the City of Glendale before embarking on a discussion of policy proposals.

The city council of Atlanta, Georgia servers as a local legislative government branch. The council is made of the president, Ceasar Mitchell and fifteen members elected from district within the city. The city of Atlanta is broken up into twelve different districts and three post, each councilmen is responsible for representing the needs and wants for their district. The members of the council are elected by the citizens, and they work together to pass laws, make general policies, supervise city government, and appropriate funds for various needs. Usually, council meetings are open to the public, and public input is welcomed. The majority the councils work is done in committees. In the committees proposed legislation is debated and the members of other government branches and the public are given a chance to comment. Each council member serves on at least three of the council's standing committees, and select committees and panels. This week the author had the chance to attend a City of Atlanta council committee meeting and view how the meeting was conducted and went.

The Dahlonega City Hall was crowded on the evening of March 1st 2010. The seats were full, except for at the very front, and the standing room was filled almost out the door. The crowd, mostly made up of students, leaned in to hear as the voices of the City Council members faded in and out of the faltering sound system. The six City Council members and the mayor sat along a bench as if they were the judges at a hearing. Because of the ongoing discussions and the crowd, I thought I had arrived a few minutes late; but I was able to find a seat in the front two rows. Despite how packed the small room was there were plenty of empty seats in the front. I had thought the meeting was well on its way by the way conversation was going and

Throughout this paper we’ll be assessing and dissecting the community of Paterson, New Jersey, located in Passaic County. Formerly referred to as an industrial powerhouse that opened many doors of opportunity to the community surrounding it. It added wealth, independence, and economic security to the surrounding areas. The Great Falls and the potential power they generated was the primary cause for this. Alexander Hamilton wanted to construct an industrial city around the Great Falls. He believed manufacturers will increase the power and division of labor throughout the community. These falls were the significant factor

I attended the regular monthly meeting and public hearing for the City of New York Community Board No. 1, Queens that was held at the Astoria World Manor, located at 25-22 Astoria Blvd., Astoria on Tuesday, February 16, 2016, at 7pm. According to NYC (2014), the purpose of each New York City Community Board is to encourage the citizens to participate and get involved within their communities, and resourceful organizations of agencies that deliver public services in local communities and boroughs. Furthermore, the specific purposes of the board meeting were to obtain the license to operate an Unenclosed Sidewalk Café, approval for

After our discussions in class and reflecting on the readings it made me think more critically about the efforts actually put forth to young kids ad their communities. The fact that programs are not always implemented help a kids growing up experience to the best of their ability due to the lack of concern if it is another race or ethnicity is heart wrenching. As time goes on I like to think those thoughts and bystanders have passed but that is not always the case. The environment in which someone grows up in has a lot to say about his or her character and future holdings as an individual. After seeing the effect CBPR had in the reading “Engaging Homeless Youth in Community- Based Participatory Research: A Case Study from Skid Row, Los Angeles” was impactful in the fact they video tapped the condition, discriminations and harassment one faced in a multicultural society. I know where I grew up it was definitely considered diverse after

I chose to attend a city council meeting for this assignment and was very surprised at what I witnessed. The city council served an important purpose and the meeting actually accomplished many important goals. Among the interesting things that I saw at the council meeting were the people who attended, the people who presented, the people who sat on the council, and the subjects that were being voted upon in the meeting.