Opinion : Tonight's City Council Meeting full of Tough Topics

Following is the link to the agenda for tonight's city council meeting which begins at 7:00 p.m.

On the agenda will be a discussion on the silly ordinance in the books of Vinton where an abstention is a "Yes" vote, which was a disaster for Ron Elwick's last meeting as he tried to do the right thing by abstaining from voting, while the ordinance automatically turned his vote on its head. Fixing this will be a relatively easy fix for the council. 

Addressing the council will be Lu Karr who was the original electee to fill the 2nd Ward seat. She will be talking about the 2nd Ward Seat Election procedure. There has been a lot of head-scratching going on as the people that run elections try to figure out what should be done, the electee tries to get questions answered and everyone is trying to figure out the legal procedure for filling this seat. 

When you might think you know about how it works, you probably don't, I sure didn't. Hint: the pesky law.

The appointment of a VMEU trustee will also be discussed. The council is required by law to appoint a woman to the board to meet the Gender Balance Law requiring the council to make an attempt to balance all board appointments equally between men and women. 

Addressing the council will be Amy Edison who applied for the VMEU Board position, but was rejected. A pool of women put in applications, some were disqualified, but all were rejected in spite of the city's need to follow the gender balance law requiring them to appoint a woman to the position. The council had moved to reappoint Mike Elwick and then later moved to remove him from that appointment.

There are many other things on the agenda as well, but these are the highlights, and topics you should pay the most attention to. These topics all address the law and how Vinton will choose to follow it. 

If you've never attended a City Council meeting, really, they are fun to attend, fun to watch, educational and like everything else important, you really should be involved.

If you can't be there, be sure to watch on Vinton Today's Facebook page where it will be live streamed.