SNL & Politics

What’s better than reality t.v. these days? A city council meeting in the town where I work. This is not something I frequently (or ever) do and this is actually the first one I ever attended. Given the entertainment factor I might consider going back. I had to go for work – the why of it really is insignificant so I will skip that part because I know you all want to hear about why the fire trucks can’t make it up our street when the bar is booming at the bottom of the street. The meeting starts with a public comment period of 4 minutes per person and they limit you to 4 minutes, which should have been the first sign of the fun to come. After listening to the perils of hydrofracking and how we are going to die an awful death the entertainment takes the stand. He proceeds to tell about how 10 years ago he took a public safety survey in the town. He catches my interest because this was 10 years ago and he’s still talking about it. That has to mean it’s important right? Lol! My eyebrows go up. Then he proceeds to tell how nothing ever changes because of all his hard work. My nose starts to twitch. Then he says that he thinks it’s a waste of money to send the police officers for advanced training that they will never use it in this town. My teeth grit at this point to prevent me from giggling out loud because I mean hello he is saying they don’t listen and this place is not safe and then he is saying they don’t need training. Then he says “You sent an officer to hostage negotiations training and this was a waste of money because the last hostage situation a couple weeks ago ended peacefully”. I proceed to snicker now because he totally does not make any sense to me. The officer was trained to have it end peacefully – duh! I heard a few giggles in the audience and then he says to the Mayor that he needs to control his city administrator because she is smirking at him. This is too much for me and I can’t control the giggles. He then proceeds to stare her down. Seriously. Guy needs a life. He looks clean cut and normal, but whoa. Definitely not normal. Back at work I’m updating an employee on our parking issue and she says did so-and-so take the stand and then she starts laughing. I tell her my story and she then tells me he chewed the Mayor out for not listening to him at the last meeting. She saw it on cable last month. If you think about it there is no way to keep him out of the meetings as they are public and have to be. Totally explains the 4 minute time limit for speaking. Oh and in the middle of the meeting he shouted out that they were not following the agenda and had skipped the comment period on the subject I was there for right after I spoke. The city attorney told him it was on track and he must have not been listening because they had just discussed it. At that point I made a bee line for the door. My 30 minutes of being entertained was over and the night was sure to get uglier. I didn’t want to be in the same parking lot with the nut case.