By: Diane Benjamin
Normal held another meeting that lasted close to 2.75 hours. It will obviously take more than one story to cover it.
I’m starting at the end. For the second time recently a citizen had to wait until the end of the meeting to offer Public Comment. This is because of Normal’s ridiculous policy where only people speaking to an agenda item can talk at the beginning. Normal is intentionally torturing citizens who have a Constitutional Right to address their government. Nobody knows when a meeting will end, those 10 minute slam dunk bobblehead circuses no longer exist.
Last night Scott Preston finally noticed. Scott didn’t notice when the ordinance was passed. Stan Nord tried to amend the ordinance before it passed, he couldn’t get a second. It’s not like Normal gets a flood of commenters that would take up their “valuable” time at the beginning of meetings. The current policy means the Council doesn’t think a citizen’s time is valuable, just theirs.
See the Minutes from the October 19, 2020 Council meeting: https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3841
Last night Scott Preston made this comment on the current policy. He did a 180 from when he failed to “second” Stan Nord’s concerns almost a year ago:
Koos clone Kevin McCarthy then announced “somebody has to go last”. He has the same regard for citizens as Koos. It wasn’t McCarthy’s only asinine comment last night, more coming up!
Just hit play to hear the student comment she had to wait hours to say. She wants the Town to require fire extinguishers in all apartments:
You have to go last council members. You work for us. ;
Normal reelected those who think they are royalty!
Preston didn’t support it before because Koos told him not to. He brought it up now because the AG probably told the town they received complaints and should change the rule to avoid them making a ruling.