Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Swift Gavel of Justice: Anna C. Verna











I went to a city council meeting today. If there's one lesson I learned, other than the fact that our 16 city council members are a rather unattractive bunch that were no doubt the deciding factor in our horrible nationwide rating, it's that you don't trifle with City Council Prez Anna C. Verna. Indeed, she is one Italian matriarch that just screams, "Italian fucking matriarch".

It's appropriate that President Verna's middle initial is a "c", because she embodies a certain c-word that you all are definitely familiar with:

Combative

I learned the following about how to behave in her council today:

1.) You don't not talk when someone else has the floor. When the organizers of the million women march were honored in a resolution today, they were provided the floor to give an acceptance speech. When their leader was about to give her speech, one of the other members took the moment to try and shout out some sort of "political statement" off the mic. Anna C. Verna struck the gavel and was like, "step-off, you don't have the floor" and then told her stenographer to write "stfu", scan the page and upload it into a PDF, and then send it the member's blackberry.

2.) If the audience noise forces President Verna to strike the gavel twice for order, she'll start asking people to take it outside. After the Million Women's March gave their speech, there was a photo shoot with the rest of city council (At-large member Frank Rizzo, Jr. declined to take part. In fact, Rizzo looked like he'd rather be anywhere other than a City Council meeting. He's probably just eager to get his next FOP kickback.). When the audience kept talking well after the shoot was over, the wizened stump that is prez Verna told em' where the hall was.

3.) She moves the proceedings along quickly, because she is just as bored as everyone else. Verna makes the statement "all those in favor, say aye" like she wishes we could just skip the democratic process. No one would disagree with her. I mean, come on...A resolution calling to re-pave the road on Kelly Drive? Do we really need to vote on that? Can't the City Council member introducing the resolution just hand out the no-bid construction contract and get things over with?

Other observations about City Council: The council clerk talks faster than the guy from the micro-machines commercial. seriously; I don't think the I can remember the details of a single resolution that went through the council today. I'm glad I'm not a real reporter.

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