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Sunday, February 21, 2010

What if the City of Dallas threw a committee meeting and nobody came?

The possibility of that happening is more likely than you might imagine.

The Dallas City Council has all these standing committees and they are supposed to meet on a regular schedule, usually once every other week or so, and be briefed on issues someone on the city staff (usually the city manager) wants them to know about or on an item upcoming at a full council agenda session.

There are times, however, when the city staff ain't got a single thing to present to these committees. But, wait, they are going to meet anyway. I think their pay actually gets docked if they don't meet and you know they are not going to be happy about that.

That's when the city staff goes scurrying around for a placeholder presentation, something to present for the sole reason of having something to present. Want an example of just such a placeholder briefing? Here's one that will be presented Monday to the Council's Quality of Life Committee.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dock pay for not having a meeting? Me thinks you're misinformed. Public meetings are scheduled long before an agenda is made. They MUST be kept if nothing else to record the pain of meeting without an agenda. You don't want to create the perception that they're doing stuff behind the citizen's backs, do ya?