It's a meeting to discuss uh Councilman Oil and his priorities in his eighth of eight years.

Um, leader on council and immeasurable, wonderful impact on our city.

Countywide, but on its event rate, rock, council, appreciate it.

So uh really appreciate that.

You do have one year left.

Um, if I have any way that I can help get the answer, so that's sure.

Love to be able to do it.

So uh with that, the only thing on the agenda to Mr.

Nooney's point is let's talk about your priorities.

Well, you're on council.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Uh it's refreshing to have these kind of conversations early on in the process.

I know you've got a challenging year ahead of you, bridging.

Bridging is a common word I think you're going to hear frequently probably have already.

Uh, and I'm uh very much uh want to be in a position to support you in that context.

So uh well, obviously, like any council member, I have active interest in serving on the committees you think where I can be most impactful.

Uh I won't hold you to any of that uh neighborhoods continues to be one of my favorites, only from the vantage point is that's kind of where we plow the field, as you well know.

Yep.

I served as uh on it for a number of years, chair to one year, and I think it really does set the table for the balance of the committee.

So uh but other than that, uh wherever uh you want to put me.

Ironically, uh there are two focus uh as it relates to my district specifically, and I know you've seen a couple of emails from my uh folks with a particular person in concern about the mandarin sidewalks.

To make it clear for the record, obviously that's a JTA project, not a city uh project, and it's based upon uh sound work that was done 10 years ago, requiring uh calling for the extension of the sidewalks and go.

So we're moving forward with that project.

The other that I am uh working on, and it's kind of below the radar too, is as you probably call the strategic funding a couple years ago was able to secure 156,000 dollars for the hiring of a consultant to see if it's possible for us to stand up what I'm now calling the mandate area map or mandate area preservation project.

Uh and the idea to see can we create a free a self-sustaining freestanding entity that uh facilitates and coalesces the voices of the community on a variety of issues from preservation and beautification and so forth.

Like, uh very similar to uh Springfield RAP uh and San Marco Preservation Society.

Uh quite quite honestly and quite ironically to some extent, I think the whole issue and the concern by a relatively small segment of our community, but very vocal regarding the extension of the sidewalks.

Had a resource like that been in place for me to take the idea to them before actively championing them for it, would have been very helpful to me then, but be that as may.

Yeah, we are not seeing a lot of development in Mandarin these days, uh very little infill, so you don't see us showing up in the LUZ very much.

Uh so I don't know that I have a great uh uh responsibility there to be focused on that.

I did want to take a minute uh to talk a little bit about uh Bill 137, uh, and that was the attendance bill.

And there's a couple of things that are curved balls to that.

Number one, with respect to I'm hopeful that uh you will task your committee chairs to take to heart what that ordinance now calls for, in terms of raising the bar in terms of accountability and responsibility of our colleagues.

Yep.

Do you say as as being the you call me the rock or whatever I was?

That's really important to me that we kind of raise the standard and expectations of the council members.

Interestingly enough, uh, in this very room, as a matter of fact, when we had this confirmation, there was a lot of talking about people who walk on votes.

Yeah, uh, there is already in the council rules, and I will warn you about this, that state very specifically, no member present at at any meeting of the council shall absent himself or herself from the meeting without permission from the chair for prior notice given.

Uh I think I would respectfully suggest that you uh task your chairs to make that very clear to their membership.

Otherwise, if we don't, uh, I'm working with Michelle on introducing a bill that speaks to the definition of present.

Uh, and right now in the conversations we had on this, and I know this is a little far afoot, but uh well, present meetings within arm reach of the the voting machine.

No, in my mind, presence is you're in the room.

You walked out to go to the green room to duck a vote, quite honestly, or duck uh public comment.

Not that they wouldn't want to hear from Mr.

Nuny, but uh that was certainly would be the case.

So if we uh as part of your instructions, as we traditionally do at the beginning of the year as to how you know you want your council committee chairs to conduct themselves and yourself, uh to hold them accountable to make sure that they hold their committee members accountable in terms of reporting, requesting, you know, uh absences, et cetera, based upon the parameters that we agreed upon in the council rule at 137.

That really was the what I wanted to kind of focus on a little bit.

I look at my seven years on the council's legacy, I would see that as a legacy that I've helped try to bring a little bit more, a little more professionalism to the board to the council.

Thank you for that.

And you know, you bring up a really good point because to some degree it's disrespectful to your colleagues when you walk because your colleagues are thinking about how they want to vote on something and they might be trying to count votes or listen to what people say, and then suddenly if the votes disappear and it's a 50% or two-thirds, you could change everything, it could change the dramatically change the outcome of a specific bill.

I think why it exists.

It's not the least, they're also their constituents as well.

Exactly.

Not living up to their responsibility.

You got elected, you put yourself in a position to be elected, make those difficult decisions rightly or wrongly, and the consequences being personal or professional, however, you still need to make them.

Exactly.

And uh accountability, I think is something I w I'd like to see is continue to improve upon.

Yep.

Noted fantastic input.

I appreciate it.