The Sept. 27 Clearlake City Council meeting was a perfect example of what some citizens are claiming is an abuse of governmental power. When one elected council person, in this incident Judy Thein, dictates a council decision without open discussion, then the first amendment is disregarded for the sake of Thein”s own power and control.
The other four council members went along with the chairperson and never uttered a word about anything being out of order. Not one council person showed any respect for the effort that more than a thousand registered voters had signed, a petition that told this city council that all was not right in Clearlake and some changes were in order. While we were taking signatures for the petition in July, two of these city council members said they wanted to sign the petition, but we did not let them.
On Sept. 4, I filed a thorough agenda with the City Clerk to be heard at the Sept. 27 council meeting. The person that writes and properly files an agenda is the person that initiates the information and questions to the council for open discussion. In this situation, Thein initiated my questions to the city administrator who read his prepared answers. I was completely cut off from the discussion until Thein had exhausted all the control she could muster. While the obvious power hungry person was exploiting my very thorough agenda, I realized that I had been too honest and had given far too much information to the city council and city administrator prematurely. The other four council members seemed somewhat removed and not fully aware of the scheming that the administrator and chairperson had accomplished in the three previous weeks. What we had all witnessed at this council meeting was a “Government for those other than the People” in full dress rehearsal.
This city council has not been honest and open about Administrator Neiman”s resume and his most recent employment. My best recollection of a recent newspaper article spoke of an interlude in Neiman”s most recent employment as some self-employment, but the main theme of his background was nine years as city manager in Fortuna. Now just recently a city council member told me that Neiman was self-employed the last seven years as a consultant on redevelopment projects. The last administrator this council hired also had a “confused” resume.
The City of Clearlake”s past city councils have had almost a 100-percent record of turning over all of their authority to these new administrators, and then watch from a distance as our city slides deeper in debt, poverty and disrepair.
Frank Brumfield
Clearlake
