Council talks about getting along and social media

Mayor says asking people to exit a meeting is never easy

By Barb Pert Templeton

When city council members are trying to conduct business at their meetings, they may disagree with each other or even have to remove hecklers from the crowd but at the end of the day all remain civil.

Keeping that in mind Councilman Michael Bembas took a few minutes during his council comments at a June 2 meeting to state that he appreciates the fact that 99.5% of the time the council members all get along.

He said he’s been on the council for a very long time and even though they may have differences of opinion and spats, he’s seen a lot worse watching other community government meetings.

“You’ve got a pretty good council here, these are all good people who care about their community,” Bembas said. “They’re passionate about it and I appreciate that, it’s a lot better than having milk toast people up here, if they get passionate about it means they care.”

He added that the keyboard warrior stuff that takes place on Facebook just trying to get people’s goat, well if it doesn’t get your goat it probably means you are old like him or if it does you are just passionate.

Mayor Pro Tem Davey added that people can disagree and they can do it respectfully and sometimes that gets lost these days.

During her council comments Councilwoman Wendy Meldrum thanked Bembas for his compliment to the council but said the city staff deserved thanks too. She said they really step up and make the council look good.

She said she also knows several people mentioned social media and how some not very nice things are said online.

“Just as we’re encouraging our children to put their phones down get off social media, I’m just going to encourage my members to stay off social media,” Meldrum said, noting that if it’s important, she’s sure City Manager Artie Bryson will let them know about it. “I think removing yourselves from social media a little bit would be very helpful.”

Mayor shares his thoughts on the issue

Mayor Rocky Gillis took time during his council comments to weigh-in on the topic.

“We try to run an organized meeting here and that means only one of us talks at a time,” Gillis said.

He said when the council members are talking nobody interrupts anyone else. By the same token they don’t interrupt anyone speaking during public comments.

“You get five minutes and you can tell us we’re the worst people in the world, we hope you don’t but when we’re up here and we’re discussing things if somebody’s going to interrupt, it’s my job I have to correct the interruption,” Gillis said. “If somebody is going to cackle at council, at that point they may be asked to leave.”

The mayor said he doesn’t like having to do that, it’s not fun.

“It’s never fun to be that person that has to say I’m sorry, please leave, that’s not fun, actually I hate doing it,” Gillis added.

He went on to say he has ADHD and he can hear multiple things at once and his brain goes in three different directions. In fact, that’s why when the council is talking about things they keep things quiet up at the board table so they can do their job.

“It’s respect for the room and it’s respect for the democratic process,” Gillis said. “And it’s funny, Mike says we can disagree and we all disagree up here at many different times. Sometimes our phone calls are not the greatest to each other during the week but it’s okay, it’s okay, that’s what we do.”

Gillis then referenced a documentary he saw called “Join or Die” where it talks about how from 1950 to today there has been a big decrease in belonging to service organizations and churches. It said when you belong to service organizations and churches you learn to disagree.

“The decrease in that compared to the decrease in trust for government is on the exact same path and it is like amazing,” Gillis said. “Because when you belong to these things you like this person but you disagree on this topic and it’s okay, but you don’t have to hate.”