Mesa City Council Study Session Thu 28 March 2019

Too bad if you've a short-attention span - this is 104 minutes. It's part of the run to the finish in the annual round of budget presentations. 
Are readers of this blog on their mark, and ready-set-go for all the dashes to the finish line some time at the end of May? 
Once again notice all the empty seats in the Lower Chambers.
Looks like politics here in Mesa is a spectator sport, but when hardly any members of public are even watching, it is sad

It takes due diligence and efforts ahead of time to get informed on what's on the agenda for this study session when the meeting details were made public late in the day on March 26th. That's really not sufficient time - about one day - to access, review and study all the items on the long agenda for this early morning session. Some things can easily slip through the cracks that appear in open, transparent and accountable government when information is first of all either late or for some reason  kept out of the public sphere.

So the session starts with a groggy John Giles asking if the Police Chief is present to sing him Happy Birthday - such gravitas, huh? Then D5 David Luna first asks about a crash that damages a bus shelter [really important, huh?] and D2 Mark Freeman next cues in on just one contract for Fire Department equipment in an long list of awards adding up to millions of dollars. . . .
Oh, and by the way there will be 'several presentations' on budget stuff. It was a surprise to see this uploaded on the same day since there's no reason not to do that on a regular timely basis - at the time of upload to this blog there were 27 views in  a city of over 475,000.

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