Watching a city committee meeting the other day, I was surprised by how the women were treated by some of the men in the room. I can’t tell if the women were disrespected because they were women or because of another reason, but it really hammered home, once again, how incredibly frustrating City Hall can be for women in city government.
The meeting was the CCOC (Common Council Organizational Committee) and it happens to have all alders on it. Alders Tim Bruer, Michael Schumacher, Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, Marsha Rummel, Bryon Eagon and Chris Schmidt were in attendance. Alder Pham-Remmele and Verveer joined them in the room later. City staff Joel Plant, Michael May were there to participate in the discussion. Lisa Veldran was there to take notes. Debbie Fields, also from the Common Council office, was also present to observe for another item not discussed here along with Rose Mary Lee, Kristin C from the Cap Times and myself. So, the conversations went on regarding this topic between 6 men (Bruer, Schumacher, Eagon, Schmidt, May, Plant) and 3 women (Bidar-Sielaff, Rummel and Pham-Remmele).
What struck me was a series of relatively minor comments and actions. And again, I don’t know if the disrespect, condescending language and patronizing was because they were women, or for another reason. But, the fact remains, it was the women in the room that were treated in this way.
The discussion was about city committees, how many alders should be on committees, how they decided which committees needed more alders, why citizens are being removed from committees in favor of alders, should the chair vote if there is an even number of people on the committee, etc, etc. The suspicion by many is that behind the scenes, various alders have requested to be on committees and did not get the assignments that they wanted and this is an attempt to give them what they want. It’s unclear if this is an attempt to have alders get more control of committees. The Alcohol License Review Committee (ALRC) and Public Safety Review Board (PSRB, actually, its now the PSRC or Public Safety Review Committee due to recent changes to committee names) each have 7 members and they want to have 3 of them be alderpersons. The Economic Development Commission (EDC, now the Economic Development COMMITTEE) has 11 people and they want to change that to 13 so that there will be three alders on that committee. So, that sort of sets the scene. Here’s what happened.
1) Alder Rummel is trying to ask the sponsor, Tim Bruer, why they are doing this. There is lots of talking by Bruer and some talk about wanting to raise the profile of public safety, economic development and liquor licenses. Also some discussion about having more alders on these committees in the past. But when Alder Rummel pushes to get more satisfactory answers, Bruer says that she should just “trust me”. It was sort of the equivalent of “don’t you worry your pretty little head” and had this air of “I’m the man and I’ll take care of it for you.” That by itself, would have been annoying, but what happened next makes it kind of all the more annoying.
2) Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff was explaining how she thought that it was ok to add alders, but not at the expense of citizens. As she is talking, Bruer is talking to Schumacher. Schmidt and Eagon are listening to Shiva more or less and looking at their materials and thinking about things but not clearly actively listening but also not actively not listening. It appears that Alder Rummel is the only one actively listening and Bidar-Sielaff is actively looking at Alder Rummel who is the only one very obviously paying attention. It gets so bad, she finally just stops talking and looks at Bruer and Schumacher and says “excuse me”. They stop talking, Bidar-Sielaff continues with what she is saying and about 10 seconds later, in a slightly lower volume Bruer and Schumacher resume their conversation. Again, not so atypical, but add that to the former item, combined with the next ones, got me wondering even more.
3) Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff makes a motion to add an alder to ALRC but keep the citizen seat that would be eliminated. She is about to start talking to her motion when Bruer interrupts her, allegedly to clarify the motion. He asks her if he understands her motion and then, instead of letting her continue, he calls on Alder Schumacher. Again, not that unusual that they slip up on usual protocol, but with the previous incidents and the ones that follow, its beginning to add up.
4) So, Alder Rummel finally speaks to the motion and she had mentioned that there was going to be a problem because many of the alders already have meetings on Wednesday nights. She is obviously frustrated as she has a Wednesday night meeting and so can’t request to be on ALRC or EDC. While she is talking, Bruer interrupts again, and says “Ok, we got that point out of the way”, dismissing her concerns and seemingly trying to get her to stop talking about that issue.
5) After the ALRC motion is done and Alder Rummel is talking about the EDC appointment and asking why the PSRB and ALRC membership is capped at a low number (7/8))and yet on EDC they have 13 members, Alder Schumacher gets up and leaves the room.
6) So, the next one is a little iffy, but, Alder Pham-Remmele asked Bruer a direct question, which he doesn’t answer and asks Joel Plant from the Mayor’s office to answer instead. The question was about how appointments are made and kind of derails the current discussion. When Joel gets done, Bruer suggests that Pham-Remmele can talk to Plant later about this issue. Pham-Remmele, obviously frustrated by the blatant attempt to have her be quiet, presses on and asks Bruer to answer the question she asked and not “push it off”. On this one, she was a little bit off and derailing the conversation, and asking a question that was slightly uncomfortable to answer (Are you happy with the process the way it is?), but the way she was treated was not entirely respectful and in this case, she wasn’t being all that obnoxious. (Yes, I just stood up for Alder Pham-Remmele, because she deserves respect and to be treated professionally if she is being respectful and professional.)
7) There is a motion made by Schmacher, which he admittedly is “under no illusion that the motion will pass”, that brings up some very interesting issues (which I’m hoping someone else blogs about later today and I’ll link it if they do or I’ll put it in the weekly round up.) Bidar-Sielaff suggests that Alder Bruer should put this on the agenda for a future discussion. Bruer doesn’t really commit to it. Conversation continues, then Alder Schumacher makes the same suggestion, at which time, Alder Bruer says it is a good idea and he will do it. That could have been just the momentum of the conversation, but given everything else going on, it seemed that when Bidar-Sielaff suggested it, it wasn’t a good idea, but when Schumacher did, it was a better idea.
8) During the discussion of PSRB, Alder Rummel is asking about the role of alternates on committees. She suggests, twice, that this also be put on the agenda for a future discussion. Her suggestion is not recognized by Bruer.
This whole discussion took probably a little more than an hour. But, having been around for a while, it seemed to have more than its share of slightly awkward moments. And more concerning, is that the issues are coming directly from an attitude of council leadership and those who are close to the Mayor and Council leadership. Its a cultural shift that has gotten worse over the years and more and more obvious and blatant, especially, if you start looking for it.
So, just in case people wonder what the point of my post is and before it gets spun completely out of control as me just being hysterical, I’ll be absolutely clear, I am asking people for two things:
1) Just watch. What do you see? Is it right?
2) Be aware. I’m hoping that some of the people doing it, might become a little more aware and think about how their action appear.
Cuz it doesn’t look good if you pay close attention.
