Hindsight is 20/20: ReRuns of Meeting Show "New Business" is the Same Old Business

The agenda of our last council meeting (Wednesday, May 2nd) looked pretty harmless, on paper. Unfortunately, the real agenda that was played out before the people was anything but. In drafting this post, we reviewed the video footage of that meeting and have included links to clips of it. Just when we thought Mayor Cass was getting it about the need for our meetings to be well organized with a proper agenda, he found a loophole, and used it—once again—to take us by surprise. Concealed under “New Business” was a pre-orchestrated attack on us and our blog, reminiscent of what usually stays hidden in the backroom. [See it here.]

Led by Councilors Greco, Schroeder, and Cosentino, with the Mayor passively looking on, the chaotic assault served no purpose except for them to vent their anger. OK, so the blog makes them uncomfortable. We knew that. But if they truly wanted a serious discussion about the blog, wouldn’t they have included it as an agenda item? But the Mayor said Council didn’t need a “topic” to have a discussion, even if it goes on for almost an hour. In other words, anything goes.

We did our best to respond civilly to each attack that came our way, but, we have to admit they were difficult to deal with: complaints that were hard to follow, prepared statements that were nothing but catch-alls of for past grievances, coordinated messages boiling down to one thing: they don’t like the blog. How is that “New Business” for Council?

Councilor Greco led things off with a report that he had received complaints from Kirkwood Avenue residents about the slide show of the Geneva Hispanic Church property. He made a reference to its being “offensive” because it includes an image of prayer [See GenevaCCM3 here.]

Then there was Councilor Cosentino’s claim that our blog is “anonymous” because we don’t sign our postings. Please see the Augustine/Capraro signature at the bottom of this and every post. [See his comments here.] Even Councilor D’Amico got into the action to point out that we did not attend the meeting at which Councilor Schroeder said the decision to ambush us was made.

Schroeder read from a prepared speech. [SeeGenevaCCM8.] Still under New Business, he covered the Lyons Bank project, the Lyceum Heights housing development, and the City Hall/Firehouse improvement plan.

Had we known that the council meeting was going to be a Public Hearing on us, we might have been prepared to offer facts to counter their opinions. You can find those facts here, in our latest post “Correcting Council’s ‘Revisionist History’ with Real Facts.”

All in all, the New Business on Mayor Cass’s agenda was the Same Old Business. Why can’t we have well organized, properly run, professional Geneva City Council meetings?