The new council is in the house

I have two posts planned for tonight, but it's already late and I have work work to do, so we'll see.

High lights of tonight's City Council Workshop:

• The vote was canvassed and accepted.  I think this means that even if Mark Manning asks for a recount (and KDH is more interested in that than Mark is), it won't matter.  The Council is Clark, Lower, Blackstone, Okray, Foster, Segarra and Gilmore.
• The city has agreed to some technology changes that are going to make a big difference in the long run.  Thanks to Dan Kott and Dan Corbin for pushing them:
• Video of council sessions and workshops will be live-streamed and archived
• Session segments will be indexed so viewers can find the parts of meetings that they are interested in.
• Council packets (the boatload of information each councilor is given to prepare for meetings) will be posted so that the rest of us can see them, too.  This is going to make a huge difference, because citizens will be able to see what the questions are and hold councilors responsible for resolving them.
• Lots of "hello, rookies" information was presented.  Most of it is available on the city government web site.
• Katherine Davis, the city attorney, presented a good (meaning jargon-free) summary of the Open Meetings Act and what it means to the council.  I hope her slides end up on the internet somewhere.  I'll link to them if they do.  For the required training that each councilor will take on this subject, see https://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index.shtml
• Workshops on council meeting days (first and third Tuesdays) will start at 1700 instead of 1600.

There's lots more city government coming up.  A special workshop is scheduled for Thursday the 17th, where the agenda items for the first formal council session in six months (Tuesday,  May 22 at 1800) will be discussed. The agenda is already posted at the city web site.  I encourage people (including council members) to pay particular attention to the crowded "consent agenda" which, in previous councils, was often approved without discussion.