"Thanks for coming down": courteous, well-meaning, but have Garland's city councilmembers truly listened to citizens addressing them?

Many citizens who attended the recent "Public Input Meeting" at which proposed plans for a new dog/skate park in Garland's Central Park were displayed may have wondered what impassioned testimony from the public accomplished. Here, a city representative outlines potential features of the two new parks.

The physical arrangement of the room in which Garland City Council meets in regular session sends off a subtle message that this blog has emphasized repeatedly: citizens don't count like they should in this city.

The podium at which a citizen speaks when addressing city council is at the end of a downward slope in the meeting chamber, while the mayor and councilmembers' seats are elevated as if on a stage. The nine elected officials sit behind a tall desk that gives the impression of a judicial bench that is higher than the spot where the citizen stands.

The room design impacts the public TV camera's angles showing both citizens and councilmembers. Citizens are viewed from a position slightly above their heads. Councilmembers are seen straight-on. The difference in angles could be perceived as making citizens appear minimized, while those on the dais look thoughtful and professional.

Body-language specialists might even describe the arrangement as intimidating to citizens, empowering to officials.

The physical arrangement of the room in which Garland City Council meets in regular session sends off a subtle message that has been discussed in this blog repeatedly: citizens don't count like they should in this city. Here a member of the public testifies at a recent council session.

As a Garland plan commissioner who has sat for 10 years on this same dais for twice-monthly plan commission sessions and also as a member of the public that has spoken dozens of times to council, I've been perched in both locations and know how uncomfortable citizens feel standing at the podium and how empowered people sitting at the dais feel.

Garland certainly isn't the only government entity to ever utilize this subliminal message, but it still has no place here.

The room arrangement really ought to be the other way around: In a real democracy (or republic) the citizen-bosses ought to be the elevated ones looking down on the nine members of council, who are supposed to be the servants of the people.

Or at the least, both citizens and political leaders ought to face each other at the same level, eyeball to eyeball. That is, after all, why legendary King Arthur had his round table for his knights! (The symbol was of the monarch sharing his power, authority, and honor with others whom he esteemed.)

Councilmembers are viewed straight-on, while citizens are viewed slightly above their heads. In an interesting way this symbolizes the relationship between public officials and members of the public that elect them.

As the citizens of Embree and other neighborhoods have so powerfully espoused during the latter part of 2017, council and the city's bureaucracy work for the citizens—not the other way around. Many of our leaders have lost sight of this important component of our citizens' role. This was never more apparent than at the city-convened December 21 "Public Input Meeting" regarding Central Park.

A thoughtless city government is nothing new to Garland. My first introduction to how citizens are easily disregarded occurred some 14 years ago when my next-door neighbor begged me to go with her to a plan commission hearing to protest new construction in Garland High School's back parking lot abutting our neighborhood.

The neighbor and I left that so-called "public hearing" believing we had NOT been heard in the slightest.

In the hallway afterward, the GISD architect told the two of us "Oh, you are just going to love what we are going to do." He described landscaping along our alley that first would be installed (and later removed without any explanation as soon as the construction at the school passed the city's inspection). He also failed to mention that the removal of the school's tennis courts and the elevation of its new Fine Arts Building would create a direct line of vision from the porch of the new school building to our backyard porches—prompting us after the landscaping mysteriously disappeared to have to build, at our expense, taller fences and have to plant more trees to regain our lost privacy.

Meanwhile the city looked the other way and refused to enforce its own requirements about landscaping for new construction!

I've heard too many stories over the years from other citizens who believe they have been ignored by city leaders—that the city did not act in their best interests. This blog has repeatedly cited examples and situations—such as authorized citizen studies that were overruled or ignored and citizens whose expertise has not been valued—where Garlandites are minimized and overlooked in the political processes.

Perhaps now with the dramatic dynamics under way on the current city council—the mayor resigning and leaving office in May and a successful recall petition against a councilmember who also will depart in May—something will change. Maybe, just maybe, citizens once again will be respected—like they were in decades long past when Garland was a smaller city and politicians truly were held more accountable because of citizen familiarity with individual members.

While my concern is about citizens in general, nearby property owners where issues arise are the ones that are most overlooked by the city's leaders and bureaucracy. Anytime a public outcry occurs over an issue, public officials need to ask themselves how they personally would feel if tennis courts, an armory, or some other building were suddenly torn down—or a car wash built or a mini-warehouse planned or a noisy church constructed—next door to their homes without anyone in the city government ever even thinking about what the action might do to them and their immediate neighbors. 

Since moving to downtown Garland in 2000, I've worked closely with city council and various city departments on a variety of issues. I've seen the bureaucracy at work both from the inside and outside. I personally know some in the bureaucracy and in city politics who understand the concept of respect for citizens; I also know others who clearly don't get it and who think of themselves as bosses of those that elected them. 

Often when a citizen has addressed city council, either the mayor or a city councilmember instantly responds to the speaker, "Thanks for coming down." The expression is supposed to be an acknowledgement that a citizen has taken his or her time to travel to city hall and to address the council. The words have become so rote that they are trite. I personally am repulsed when I hear this cold, bureaucratic phrase and try to refrain from using it when someone addresses the plan commission. Many public officials wear out those words with their lips but not with their actions or hearts. To me it has become a courteous-sounding way to say, "Talk all you want. We're not really going to listen to you!"

What actually needs to be communicated is, "All of our citizens count. We want to hear you. We want to know what your concerns are. We will work until we can find solutions that have the least negative impact on all of our people."

Recently at the December 21 public meeting to discuss the future of the dog park and skate park at Garland's Central Park, I witnessed the same bureaucratic behaviors that have troubled me for years. The audience was lectured by two parks officials ad nauseum about what the city was planning to do—setting forth every argument, statistic, and fact for their side of the argument—before finally "allowing" citizens to offer controlled input at this gathering labeled a "public input meeting".

After lengthy justifications from parks representatives, citizens are allowed comments, but did those comments change the outcome in the long run?

Turning a deaf ear to citizens—or minimizing or trying to squelch their concerns, communicating that what they say won't really make a difference in the outcome—is never a way to run a city government.

As some people say about their kids, "They're mother-deaf" or "They're parent deaf." City officials are often "citizen-deaf" when it comes to citizens—especially those living closest to a troubled project.

My concept of community is obviously far, far different than that of many of our elected officials, many that were swept into office by a tiny fraction of the voters eligible to vote in their districts or races or by no actual citizen vote at all because the behind-the-scenes politicos managed to eliminate all potential other candidates. The city political system works diligently to keep the numbers low, so the control remains in the hands of the select few.

To me, government works in cooperation with its people and not against them—recognizing that citizens, who are taxpayers in different ways, are the true "owners" of the city—not those hired by the bureaucracy (and who too often don't even live in Garland) or those elected for short terms and then replaced. A real government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" works to include ALL CITIZENS, both white and non-white, male and female, rich and poor, in the city's governance.

Also, I believe with voters so apathetic and uninvolved in our city right now, our current leaders have a moral and ethical responsibility to do everything within their power to work to reverse that trend and engage and encourage all eligible citizens to register to vote and to go to the polls and actually vote, then to make their voices heard in as many ways as possible. Working behind the scenes to suppress voters—which occurs when "benign neglect"is allowed to rule the day and night—is simply not right.

At the meeting Thursday evening, December 21, it was clear that park officials and the majority of city leaders had made up their minds about what was to be done in Central Park. There was not going to be any reconsideration, despite the impassioned pleas by neighbors. The city is determined to build a dog park and skate park somewhere there. And they were not the least bit interested—or at least sympathetic—to seriously addressing all the issues (traffic, crime, noise, lack of supervision, etc.) that the homeowners will face from that decision. It was equally clear that the vast majority of those in attendance wanted a different solution.

Various site arrangements are disclosed for the dog park/skate park in Central Park, but the fact remains: some nearby impassioned neighbors don't want the facilities there at all. Did this matter at the meeting where "public input" was received?

Having once been treated unfairly by a cold and uncaring local bureaucracy, I feel really sorry for homeowners whose houses abut the park where the politicians and bureaucrats are determined to build these dog and skate parks. Been there and experienced that with the construction 14 years ago at Garland High School! The school district didn't care one iota about the school's neighbors and the damage their ill-conceived and poorly planned and executed construction project was going to inflict on the school's neighbors next door. All the arguments and power-plays in the world won't make it easy for the people of Embree to swallow whatever solution the parks department imposes on the park's neighbors. I admire the neighbors for at least trying to be heard, despite all the ways the city's messed-up political structure has worked against them.

A second "public input" meeting on Central Park scheduled for January 9, 2018, has been rescheduled but no date has been set yet. Let us hope this time city officials arrive with their ears, eyes, and hearts open and with an attitude of finding a solution best for all.

Citizens do matter. Taxpayers do count—no matter who the bullies are or what their agenda is.

Some day, some how, some way, Garland citizens are going to rise up and make the point to our city leaders that CITIZENS COUNT, that taxpayers are the ones footing the bills for their decisions regardless how reckless they might be, and that Garland deserves better than having a tiny elite of mostly white citizens and wealthy non-citizens that rule over this city of 237,000 individuals of many races, creeds, religions, and economic means.

Arrogance has no place in our city government. Servant leadership is what we need.

As I have repeated many times in many ways in many places, citizens count.