If I Were Mayor

It’s City Government Week. In the Transcript we are running essays written by third graders at New Rockford-Sheyenne School. The topic is “If I Were Mayor” and each student had the opportunity to write about what makes their city great and what they would do if they were mayor for a day.

In honor of City Government Week, I decided to write the same essay and print it here as my column.

So, here it is, folks!

If I were mayor, I’d never hold meetings on Wednesday afternoons or Thursday mornings, because I need that time to get the newspaper to press!

I’d take an hour a day to sit at the local coffee shop and invite residents to tell me their concerns. I’d get my caffeine fix, and I could make it look like I actually care about fixing things in the community. I mean, isn’t that where all the good ideas come from – a bunch of men crowded around a table shaking dice to see who’s going to foot the bill?

As a newspaper publisher, I am keenly aware of open records and open meetings laws.

Therefore, I would make sure to give at least 10-days notice of every special meeting so that the time, date and place could be published in the weekly newspaper.

I would never say, “don’t put that in the newspaper” to a reporter covering a public meeting. I’d also start a “swear jar,” and make the other council members pay $20 every time they said the phrase.

After every city meeting, I’d have dozens of checks to sign for bills that were approved for payment by the council. I’d order a signature stamp from the newspaper office so I could “rubber stamp” every one, like a good council member does.

I would build a helicopter pad downtown, and offer free air service to get high school athletes, fans and newspaper reporters to away games and back in minutes rather than hours!

Winter is my least favorite season. To make it more enjoyable for everyone, I’d build a dome over town to keep all the snow and ice away, but include just enough money in the budget for a snow machine so we could make sure we always had a white Christmas. I would just reallocate the snow removal budget to make the bond payments. The county road crew can clear the roads on the outside of the bubble; that’s our tax money at work!

I’m full of good ideas, but I know I don’t have all the answers either. If I saw something happening in a neighboring community that’s popular or well-received, I would steal that idea and put it to work in my town. I might even try to convince a business owner in another city to open another location here, or better yet, move to my town.

In all seriousness, leading a city is a big job. In small communities like ours, the title comes with a lot of work and very little pay. Aside from the meager stipend they receive each month, mayors and council members often get their payment in complaints.

I guess public officials aren’t much different from newspaper editors after all.

Full disclosure: These were not all my ideas. I want to give a shout out to Kim Watson and Nathan Price at the Transcript office for having so much fun with this and helping me out!

P.S. This is not an endorsement of myself for mayor. I’m perfectly content sitting on the sidelines and keeping readers informed about what’s happening and helping them form educated opinions about matters of local interest. I’ve covered more than 100 city commission meetings in my time as a publisher, and here’s to hundreds more before I retire!

I’ll leave you with a little education on two topics of great importance when it comes to transparency and open government at the local level: open records and open meetings. This is courtesy of the North Dakota League of Cities, http://www.ndlc.org.

Open Records: Under North Dakota open records law, all city records are open to the public unless an exception applies. This includes records that a city governing board member may have. An example of this is emails to and from a city governing board member regarding public business, even if they are in the board member’s private email account, are generally a public records.

Open Meetings: Anytime a quorum of the governing body of the city or any city bureau or committee discusses public business, it is subject to open meeting laws which require the meeting to be open to the public, that notice be provided to the public and that meeting minutes be kept. For purposes of open meeting laws, a quorum means one-half or more of the governing body, bureau or committee. These rules also apply to telephone calls, text messages, and emails when communication is occurring between one-half or more of the board regarding public business.