We represent a small city. In the past, we’ve helped them navigate open meeting requirements, conflict of interest laws, and other municipal niceties. Lately we’ve been helping with the politically turbulent transition as a new Mayor steps up.

The new Mayor wants to show that he is large and in charge. In particular, he wants to be seen as a cost-cutter.

So he has decreed that he will eliminate the consent calendar at the City Council meeting this week.

A consent calendar, for those lucky enough to have successfully avoided local politics and memberships on boards of directors, is a single item on an entity’s agenda that incorporates by reference a shitload of smaller individual items. With a city council, the public agenda usually has an item for the consent calender and makes reference to a separate spreadsheet, and on that spreadsheet are tens or dozens or hundreds of individual small entries that the council needs to approve.  That’s so the city council doesn’t have to approve individually each and every city check to buy paper clips and pay the city hall gardener this month and so forth.  Instead, the council just votes yes or no on the consent calendar as a whole.

This mayor wants to put each item individually on the public agenda. Then he wants to have the council vote on each item. To show that he is a waste-and-corruption-fighter, you see.

I was brainstorming about how we could use various people in city government to talk some sense into the Mayor, and what diplomatic approaches we could personally use to him.

My partner — who has two more kids than I, and has been a father for much longer — told me to chill.

Just let him try to run the meeting that way once, he said. He’ll learn.

So now we’re taking bets on (1) how many hours the meeting will last, and (2) how many pages the public agenda will be. The over-under is to about 2 in the morning.

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