Watch County Council Live On Line!
Posted by: Noel Jones
Residents can now watch our area's most notoriously dramatic public meetings on line. If you've never been to a County Council meeting up on the hill, you're missing some free entertainment--it is an all-out circus sometimes, complete with insults, tantrums and name-calling. Ron Angle, formerly our most obnoxious councilman, is now the Council President and running the show. Strangely enough, reports have come back that he's doing a good job and that meetings are not deteriorating into the petty bloodbaths of the past. Maybe he just has control issues and needed to be in charge.
Watch Northampton County Council Live--and in Archive
The next opportunity to watch will be this Thursday, at 6:30 p.m.
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7 comments:
This is great news! Those who cannot attend County Council meetings due to the time of the meeting or because of the location of the meeting deserve to be able to watch and listen!! We need City Council meetings to be online too for those same reasons!! I'm looking forward to that day!!
Interesting that you would use the painting of Guernica as the backdrop for this post. Are we the bombers or are we the helpless victims?
Alan--Terrence Hand used to record city council meetings and post them to his blog eastonundressed before he was appointed to the Easton Housing Authority...I guess he got too busy...I agree--I hope City Council will follow the County's lead and begin to stream their meetings too.
Anon 8:02--a much more general reference to mayhem. Guernica is an image that comes to mind when I think of the chaos of battle. This, of course, is a metaphor.
I attended a County Council meeting a couple of years ago where there was to be a presentation on the possibilities of bringing passenger rail back to the Lehigh Valley, and I and several other "outsiders"--people who had moved from the New York/New Jersey area attended, along with the "old timers" who were used to the histrionic behavior of council members. Those of us who had never attended before were shocked and horrified at the pettiness and flagrant lack of professionalism on display--when I say shocked, I am not exaggerating--my former coworker and I turned our heads toward each other with dropped jaws. We couldn't believe elected officials were behaving this way and were deeply embarrassed for them, but they didn't seem to be embarrassed for themselves. Many people left before the presentation because they were so disgusted that council was wasting residents' time so deliberately. What had been a packed room with standing-room only, emptied out to less than half full before the presentation even started.
I am very glad to hear that the behavior at meetings has improved a little, but when I was getting ready to do this post and needed an image, the first thing that popped into my mind was Guernica.
Bernie O'Hare blogged on Lehigh Valley Ramblings that 250 viewers tuned in to last week's County meeting:
http://lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com/2010/03/northampton-county-council-livestream.html
That's double the most attended meeting they've ever had!
I find I like petty bloodbaths, but only when watching wrestling on tv. Are the meetings that combative? I find the idea a little disturbing, to be quite honest. I'd prefer to think our elected officials are able to behave in public settings with a little decorum, but perhaps this is wishful thinking...
g-whiz...
I have attended county meetings - including the one Noel mentioned - and been so appalled that I got up from the audience and yelled at them to stop acting like clowns and wasting my time. A sherrif's deputy - who had conveniently disappeared minutes ealier during a room clearing screaming match between council members - asked me if I was done. I said yes but was too pissed of to stay in the room and waited out the rest of it in the hallway.
I've often wanted to change whatever the official slogan is to Fiascos Are Us.
DRL
G_Whiz--sadly, yes--they are that bad, but that also means that they are THAT GOOD. Seriously, it's worth bringing popcorn and in a recession, it's free entertainment, walking distance from home!
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