By Adam Pagnucco.
Normally, the process by which a new county council decides its leadership and committee structure features much back-room competition and no public dissent. Well, a new day has arrived in Rockville so that’s not what happened on Tuesday!
Part One lays out the mechanics of how this process usually operates. Now let’s look at what happened on the dais. After opening remarks by outgoing Council President Gabe Albornoz, the election of new council officers and several comments by others, Council Member Kristin Mink said the following.
I want to speak about something about which I think that we’re all in agreement but I think it’s important to name. And so after the election, when I became privy to more of the council’s inner workings, I was surprised to learn that there are some processes which predate our current council and the current and outgoing council leadership that can in some instances remove some debate and decision making from the public eye. And I know that we had talked about this and this is something that is a shared concern amongst all of us.
So I’m speaking about polls taken in various manners that could be treated with the same finality as a vote on the dais without as much public debate or oversight. And that process can allow for marginalized voices to be further marginalized. It can exacerbate racial and other inequities. And I know that breaking the status quo is hard. We all know that it takes courage and effort but I think we are all in agreement and I am grateful to say that I believe we are all in agreement that it’s the right thing to do and I believe that we are up to that difficult task together.
I am optimistic that moving forward together, this historic and historically diverse group under our new council president and vice-president will make it a priority to find new ways to bring increased transparency and equity to this body.
Council Member Will Jawando followed up.
I do want to underscore the comments of my new colleague who is sitting in my old seat actually, Council Member Kristin Mink, about need to reform these processes that are behind the scenes. I think unfortunately, it’s been my view over the last four years that marginalized voices, whether they be ideologically, racially, ethnicly, do not benefit from behind-the-scene processes. And our public doesn’t benefit from it. This process of deciding who our next leadership was going to be was one of those processes. And while we laud properly the most diverse council in our history, the leadership that’s been elected and is proposed in the committees doesn’t reflect it. That’s disappointing to me personally and individually but also for our county.
And I think just two weeks ago, or a week and a half, it’s all running together, we had a discussion about our council rules and procedures, which were passed out this morning. And one of the proposals was to remove the authority of an individual council member to introduce a special appropriation if they see a need in the community and that you would be required to have four council members to do so, something that has never existed. There was debate and discussion in the previous council and it was removed and lowered to three council members. I think that’s something we need to revisit. If I, for example, as the first African immigrant council member, or anyone who has a unique insight into an individual need in our community wants to put forward a special appropriation they have to behind-the-scenes, out of public view ask for permission to even introduce an item and have it discussed. I think it’s another example of the trend unfortunately that I have seen over the last four years that we need to reverse of removing conversations from public view and putting them in the back room which is where transparency and democracy goes to die.
So while I’m excited and look forward to serving with my new colleagues I hope that we will take this moment also as a chance to reform and renew these practices so that it can serve our public and all of our communities better.
Jawando posted video of his comments on Facebook.
Council Member Laurie-Anne Sayles added:
While the new leadership doesn’t reflect the diversity of our community, I know that we all will be able to play a role in ensuring that diverse voices are heard throughout each of our now seven committees. While the structure is not what everyone intended it to be, I know that we will all be able to work together to ensure a transparent and fair process where all of our residents feel like they have a voice, all of the residents that elected us to serve and represent their voices on the council. And so I look forward to working with our new leadership, our majority-women council members and the veterans to ensure that we’re moving forward in a unified manner and that transparency and accountability is an undercurrent of everything that we do.
Mink, Jawando and Sayles have raised some interesting questions. I will evaluate them in Part Three.