City Council - Hamilton Style

Taking a scene from the 1984 film “Footloose” in which a City Council banned dancing and rock music, Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton banned laughing and applauding, and at one point grumbled about the fact that people were even talking.

Hamilton was sitting in for the vacationing Mayor Scott Voigts.

A disgruntled Hamilton complained bitterly that he was being “bullied”, yet many people in the audience saw it differently – Hamilton was the bully.

• · He stopped speakers mid-sentence when their 3-minute time expired (In 8 years of attending City Council meetings, I never saw this happen. The normal procedure is to point out that their time has expired and to ask them to wrap it up).
• · He repeatedly told people not to laugh and not to applaud.
• · He refused to let a resident give her speaking time to another person, a practice that is commonplace, and to my knowledge, never refused before.

At one point, during his criticism of a speaker’s comments, Hamilton violated the Brown Act. I stopped the proceedings on a “point of order” and asked the City Attorney to intervene and to instruct Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton on the proprieties of the Brown Act. The City Attorney confirmed that indeed Hamilton had violated the Brown Act, and then, with no regard for what the City Attorney said, Hamilton continued.

In case you find this hard to believe, you can go to the City website and click on the agenda for last night, and view the video. It usually takes a few days for the video to post.

Note to Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton – If you’re sitting there and people are laughing at what you say, or disparaging you in side comments, or applauding when someone else talks, instead of turning against the people you are sworn to serve, you might want to examine what it is in your behavior that prompts this reaction from such a large audience. Personally I want a City Council meeting to be a place where people can come and feel comfortable, where they can laugh and occasionally applaud, and where they feel free to talk to each other. Maybe I draw the line at throwing tomatoes, but otherwise the City Council should be a place where we come together and work together to make the City a better place. To do that we may have to put up with people being human by laughing, applauding, snickering and even talking. Sometimes I’ll be the brunt of the criticism and sometimes it will fall on someone else. That’s a price I happily pay for freedom and democracy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on August 15 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

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