So picture this: It’s me, Lee Tooson, Tyrone Wilson, and Harvey Krage all standing outside of City Hall at 7:30PM this evening wondering what’s going on. A motley crew indeed.

Well, it turns out that another city council meeting was cancelled at the last second. I understand that unexpected things happen and meetings have to be cancelled or changed, but what I don’t understand is how the process of informing the residents of Ypsilanti of the cancellation can be so botched. The official address for City Hall is 1 South Huron Street. It would seem logical that the cancellation notice would be posted on the front door so to speak. Not in our city. There was a notice of a special 7:30AM meeting on Thursday taped to the glass however. A little investigation led us to discover that the cancellation notice was put on the Michigan Avenue door. To make matters worse, there was no update on the City’s website either (even though there was an update today regarding the special December 2nd Cross Street rezoning meeting). I guess six “updates” to the City’s website in calendar year 2004 is a lot and asking for a seventh would be an outrageous demand.

That’s the kind of stuff that inspires faith in our city government and our leaders.

From the 2004-04 Council Goals:

Goal Two: Continue to foster an environment in City government where communication and information is shared and services are provided in an efficient, costeffective, friendly and timely manner.

Highest Priority: Continue to implement the plan for strengthening the City’s Web Page as an additional vehicle for communication and information sharing; commit the staff and other resources needed to implement the plan and maintain the Page.

If the members of council aren’t embarrassed, then I’ll be embarrassed for them. I’ve said this before and feel bad about harping on something so trivial again, but how can an organization operate so poorly? I have no doubts that running the City is a difficult task, but when you can’t accomplish the most simple of tasks, how in the world are you going to properly manage the Water Street project? Or protect citizens from police invasions? Or make Ypsilanti “cool?” I would have dashed off a email to my elected officials, but they don’t even have email addresses published so that their constituents can contact them.

Oh, wait. I guess that’s the idea.

If I were a regular reader of the nonsense I write and was recently elected to council with promises of working for the people of Ward 3, I’d take this opportunity to begin making true on your promises. And I’d make damn sure that it was my name (and not Sandi Schulze’s) and my email address listed on the website before the December 7th council meeting. We’ll call it a mulligan when Gary Clark and Mary Delcamp expressed their concerns about the conditions of 107 East Cross Street and the Thompson building at the most recent HESNA meeting and nothing was done, but you’re on the clock now.