Today is the third anniversary of this blog. Wow, three years, already, and I think seven whole people have read it. But anyway, today is April Fool’s Day, which is so appropriate for a political blog since politics is such a joke. (I crack up every year when I say that.) But let me get down to business…
Local politics. My city does something that I can’t decide is kosher, or not. If a citizen believes a new road sign needs to be put up they cannot go to the city’s public works department and make the request. No, they are required to go to a councilperson and convince them to put a motion on a council meeting agenda, then they discuss it in the council meeting and vote on it. If it passes the public works department does it, if it fails they do not.
On the one hand I get that the public works department has work to do and shouldn’t be fielding all kinds of odd requests from every person who walks through the door. And there even is something to be said for vetting ideas.
But on the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that the true purpose is to discourage people from even making requests by making the process more bureaucratic and cumbersome. It saves them work at city hall either way. Sounds almost conspiracy-theorish, I know, but reality is that little tricks like this actually are employed in various places, so why not in my city?
What do you think? Is this process legit?