Tomorrow's agenda for the Morristown City Council includes an Ordinance to change its meeting time from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. This is a request made by Charles Cook several weeks ago and discussed at the council's last work session.
The full agenda is on the city's website. Click here for the website or here for just the agenda.
Currently, council meets at 4:00 and then goes into work session discussion after the regular meeting is adjourned. The new schedule would simply put the work session first and then the regular meeting would begin at 5:00. [IF for any reason the work session had not concluded before 5:00, the council would finish the work session after adjournment of the regular meeting].
There is little doubt that 5:00 is a more taxpayer-friendly meeting time.
However, at least one councilman is adamantly opposed to such a change. During discussion of the time change, Doc Rooney commented that if the people really want to be there because of an issue they are concerned about, they'll come no matter what time the meeting is. Of course, Doc, like several other members of the city council, is one of those who doesn't have to clock in to get a paycheck and doesn't have to take off work and lose pay to attend 4:00 meetings of council.
Hopefully, there will be a vote on this matter. There is no perfect meeting time, but a later meeting would no doubt be more convenient for most working taxpayers.
Of course, another complementary idea would be to tape all meetings and air them on the city's website so that ALL taxpayers---those who can attend at 4 or 5 and those who can't attend then or are sick and shut-in---can see what the council is discussing and how each councilmember votes. I requested the taping and airing of meetings back in September. It would be nice to see a public discussion and vote on this issue at some time in the future.
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