Town Meeting Observation

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Recommended: Public participation in democracy

The method that I used in order to find a town meeting to attend was on my computer at Jenks.com. The date that I chose to participate in a meeting was on Tuesday, July 5, 2016 and it began at 7:00 P.M. It was located at Jenks City Hall, Council Chambers, 211 North Elm. I saw that there were approximately 15 other individuals participating in the meeting on that particular night not including the speakers and city once the meeting started officials. The speakers who attended that night were Robert Bell (City Planner), Chris Shrout (Asst. City Manager), and Robert Carr (City Engineer). The officials that were there include, Kelly Dunkerley, (Mayor/ At-Large), Mike Sharp, (Vice Mayor / Ward #5), Bo Summers, (Councilor / Ward #1), Lonnie Sims, …show more content…

On this particular night, there were nine items on the agenda to be discussed. Some of the items had already been in motion prior to this night. The first item was a request for approval of a new Public Works Operations Supervisor position in the approved Fiscal Year 2016 - 2017 budget, which would be funded out of the General Maintenance account. A few of the officials had questions on this topic and the speaker who appeared to have the most answers for them was Robert Carr, who is the city engineer. The city officials seemed to be satisfied with the answers and gave approval. This was the first time I had attended a town meeting and so I was a little confused about the order they were going in after this item until I asked someone. I found that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th items were basically all related to the same topic, which had to do with getting approval of a Zone Change from an AG (Agricultural) Zoning district to RS2 (Single Family Residential) and RTH (Residential Townhome) Planned Unit Development. Items 3 and 4, which are related to this, were about ordinances that need approval to continue with development. The two individuals doing the majority of speaking in these matters was the City Planner and City Engineer, These were the most discussed topics of the evening. The remaining items were discussed and reviewed fairly quickly. They were all approved. A man named Mike Wallace stood up and spoke about a few things. I found out afterwards that he has developed 26 other residential developments in

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