Mr. David Anderson is on point: The behavior at the Dover City Council meetings is abysmal (“A response to criticism about council meeting behavior”). These are business meetings that are supposed to be conducted under strict, generally accepted rules and procedures, through guidelines accepted by all who have official business meetings. When the audience tries to engage outside the appropriate planned and scheduled public comment time frame, it confuses things and leaves the community wondering if the city has the appropriate leadership skills to simply manage its own business meetings. I’ve attended dozens and dozens of council meetings, from the 1960s (when my father was a councilman) to two weeks ago, and would never interrupt the business meeting that way, no matter how upset I was. There are guidelines and proper procedures to keep things from becoming an unruly mess, and when the squeaky wheel gets its way simply because it’s loudest, that doesn’t make it right. Everyone must understand that, just because people disagree, it doesn’t make them wrong. You might feel passionately about something, but there is someone just as passionate on the other side of the argument, and these council members have to somehow represent everyone’s interests.
I hear a lot of “crybabies are throwing fits because they don’t get their way” responses that are unhelpful and immature. If someone is passionate about his or her position, they deserve to be heard at the appropriate times, but if the meeting has started, it cannot become a competition for how loud and disruptive someone can be to be heard. You may be heard, but no one will be listening.
If this is our new attitude, we’ve lost the battle before it ever even begins. The city must return decorum to its chambers, or the whole thing looks like a clown car riding through a banana republic.
Making your point is not the same as making a scene, and it’s far more productive.
Thank you.
Sue Harris
Dover
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