This article is an ethnographic look at Binghamton NY\u27s city council meeting

Meltzer, Eli

English

The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

Alpenglow: Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal of Research and Creative Activity Volume 7 Number 2 Life at the Confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers Article 8 9-20-2021 Participant Observation of a Crowded City Council Meeting Eli Meltzer emeltze3@binghamton.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/alpenglowjournal Recommended Citation Meltzer, E. (2021). Participant Observation of a Crowded City Council Meeting. Alpenglow: Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal of Research and Creative Activity, 7(2). Retrieved from https://orb.binghamton.edu/alpenglowjournal/vol7/iss2/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Alpenglow: Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal of Research and Creative Activity by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact ORB@binghamton.edu. Participant Observation of a Crowded City Council MeetingPresident Calvin Coolidge once said, “Local self-government is one of our most preciouspossessions,” (Coolidge, 1925) a sentiment that dovetails nicely with the purpose of our course,Discovering Place: “to involve oneself in the local culture” and, in my case, local government.As part of my research on the political environment of Binghamton, I decided to attend aBinghamton City Council meeting on Wednesday, October 23, 2019.I left campus at about 5:45 p.m. on BC Transit for the 6:30 meeting. Despite an irrational,unfounded fear that I had boarded the wrong busand was headed for a terrifying adventure inBinghamton’s version of Narnia, I pressed ontowards City Hall, eager to get to the Council’schambers. Upon entering City Hall, I was asked bysecurity to remove my backpack and empty mypockets, to which I obliged. Surprisingly, they didnot request a photo ID. After walking through a metal detector, my backpack was returned to meand I retrieved my phone and wallet. I had seen some other people go through a door marked“City Council Chambers” near the front desk, and followed them up two staircases into amassive atrium with stunningly bad lighting from tacky chandeliers hanging from the sloping,vaulted ceiling. Directly below the highest part of the ceiling was a large square table where thecouncil members, clerks, and corporate counsel sat. The president was perched on a dais raisedslightly above the rest of the table. Beneath the lowest part of the ceiling was about seven rowsof audience seating, where I took a seat, second row from the top.1That was when I noticed the people around me. When I sat down, there were aroundfifteen people, scattered around the rows of seats, but as I took in my surroundings, waiting forthe council members to arrive, more people filed in, taking seats in the audience. Eventually,there were about fifty people sitting around me, and I heard a man behind me ask his friend,“Have you ever seen so many people at a meeting?” As I waited with bated breath for themeeting to begin and the reason for its uncommon popularity to become clear, I turned myattention to the audience.The crowd was mostly men, the majority of whom appeared to be working class. Mosthad beards, and some were clad in hoodies andbaseball caps. One man wore the Syracuse Universityblue and orange. I almost challenged him to a duelover school pride, but clearer heads prevailed. A fewwomen were present, one with two children and aman she said was her fiancé. A BinghamtonUniversity graduate walked in, dressed in slacks and alight blue button-down, carrying two large maps for his testimony, eliciting snickers from themen around me. One man muttered sarcastically, “Someone came prepared, didn’t he?” as Ichuckled along with them. Like the graduate student, most of the audience was there to pleadtheir case in either the public comments section of the meeting or to argue for or against a certainbill on the agenda. The audience was made up of workers at the Binghamton-Johnson City JointSewage Plant, homeowners, landlords, and a local real estate broker, as well as theaforementioned graduate student living on the West Side. There were six or seven obviouscouples, including the family with two kids.2While observing the people in the audience was the main focus of my attention at themoment, it was the meeting’s agenda that would explain its unusual popularity. The first itemwas an official shakeup of certain zoning regulations that would impose family requirements incertain residential zones of Binghamton, resulting in massive complications for student housing.This has been a longstanding issue in Binghamton and the surrounding area for a long time. Forthose who disliked their student neighbors, the legislation was a godsend, a recognition ofowner-occupiers’ influence over renters’ rights. One woman spoke for five full minutes about thetroubles she’s had with her student neighbors: the garbage littering the sides of the street, theirblithe attitudes towards parking in their usable driveways, and the sheer noise level at all hoursof the night. She insisted that student renters ought to be held to the same standards as someonerenting a house on the ocean for a few weeks, with the trash schedule posted on the refrigerator,among other things. She continued that the police don’t want to bother the students with parkingtickets, for example, and turn on their sirens to give them a chance to get outside to move theircars, further adding to the noise. Another woman echoed her sentiments, complaining thatstudents are loud, unsanitary, and uncompromising.Conversely, there were a few people speaking out against the council passing thelegislation that night, for business reasons, from a student housing landlord who insisted thatstudents were good, “responsible young adults,” and were excellent neighbors. As my Uberdriver told me on the way back to campus, students are people too: some are good neighbors, andsome are bad neighbors. Some people get stuck with the loud, selfish students, while others arefortunate enough to get the conscientious, respectful students. Sitting there in the audience,wearing a Binghamton University T-shirt, I shrank back in my seat when students were attacked.I could feel the audience members’ sideways glances directed at me as they must have wondered3if my presence indicated my involvement with these stories. The vote on these new regulationshad been scheduled for this meeting, but after listening to the arguments put forth, the councildecided to postpone it in favor of hearing more from their constituents.The second issue was raised during the public comment section of the meeting, regardingthe Binghamton-Johnson City Wastewater Treatment Plant. According to the Press & SunBulletin (Platsky, 2019), the treatment plant had in recent years suffered inefficiencies at thehands of bad weather, including catastrophic flooding, compounded by ineffective infrastructureand equally poor management. Binghamton Mayor Richard David had proposed the privatizationof the plant, which may jeopardize some of its 40 existing jobs. The issue before the council wasthis proposed privatization of the treatment plant, with at least three companies vying for thecontract. It was evidently imperative to the citizens and employees speaking to the council thatthey be assisted. The woman with two kids appealed to the council’s emotions, asking that thecouncil do something for her, her fiancé, and their five children, who can’t subsist solely on herfiancé’s salary from the sewage plant, even after he’d been there for 13 years. Another mantestified to the state-of-the-art facilities at the plant, stressing its uniqueness in the United Statesat large and adding that it was impossible for new supervisors (referring to private companies) tounderstand all the ins and outs of operating such a complex system.During the council members’ comments, Councilman Conrad Taylor stood and railedagainst other members of the council for not taking action to help the civil service workers inretaining their employment, even after the workers came to every meeting “month after monthafter month,” calling the council’s inaction “pathetic.” His words piqued my interest, and helpedme realize how admirable these workers and their families were. They saw that their jobs were injeopardy and stood up for themselves in a bid to force the council to take notice and help them4and the population they serve. A speech like this from Councilman Taylor was consistent withhis own past remarks on the privatization plan, as he was concerned with the effect it might haveon the jobs already in place (Platsky, 2019). This late in the election cycle, the council can’t domuch in the way of aid for the workers, and its composition will significantly change after theelection. Nonetheless, I was inspired by the plant workers’ fortitude and their commitment totheir career—some of the workers at the meeting had been employed by the sewage plant formore than a decade.After the meeting, as I was waiting for an Uber, a reporter from Pipe Dream, BU’sstudent newspaper, came up to me on the street and asked me for my opinions on the zoningregulations. Being overtired and stressed, my mind went blank. After a short and painfullyawkward pause, he began speaking, saving me from further embarrassment. He told me howunusual it was for the council to listen so raptly to the citizens and postpone the zoning vote asthey had in order for “further discussion” at a later date. Usually, he said, the council memberscome to the meeting with their minds already made up and pass or reject the law regardless ofthe people’s opinions. He echoed the man’s remark at the beginning of the meeting regarding theconsiderable size of the audience, adding that there were usually only one or two audiencemembers per meeting. He then reiterated my good fortune to have come specifically that night.He was right. This meeting was a great example of local government attempting to help thepeople according to their needs. The mood of most people leaving the chambers was mildsatisfaction, as many had, for the near future, succeeded in avoiding the new zoning regulationsor grabbed the ear of the council with their heart-throbbing story about the sewage plant.While some people view the concept of local politics through a wholesome lens,reinforced by the contagious cooperative atmosphere in the earlier items on the agenda, those5who attended this meeting were reminded that it is sometimes, well, political. Going into themeeting, council member Dan Livingston had been embroiled in an ethics scandal concerning anintern he had hired who worked for his reelection campaign under the radar of the rest of thecouncil. His breach of the ethics rules laid out by the council prompted several of his colleaguesto rail against his apparently unscrupulous actions. He preemptively defended himself to the restof the council, a shield that was deemed insincere by the council members who rebuked himafterwards. These frankly vicious speeches and rebuttals were in stark contrast to the cooperativeand conciliatory attitude that had pervaded the meeting until that point. The council memberswere probably thinking about what they were going to say in their speeches throughout themeeting, waiting to let loose on Councilman Livingston before a captive audience. Thoughjarring, it was a fitting reminder that politics is a ruthless game, and even local politicians canfall prey to its nasty behavioral incentives.Politics is all about cultivating relationships with people. This is especially true for localpolitics. Networking in professional as well as social circles is imperative to becoming asuccessful politician, for a rising politician needs support and fundraising from establishedpeople in the community in order to accomplish his goals. Those goals, however, are set by thepolitician’s constituents, which makes the relationship between an elected official and hiselectors key to his success. This may explain the difference in the council members’ generallypatient treatment of the witnesses who spoke and the treatment of their allegedly unethicalcolleague, Mr. Livingston. From an optimistic perspective, as the majority of the council saw it,he had let down his constituents towards whom he had the utmost obligation to respect theirwishes. It was their responsibility to check Mr. Livingston’s actions, to curb his actions before hewent too far, and if they failed in that regard, to air their grievances out in the open, out of6respect for the people who elected them. That respect, ultimately, is the motivator of a localpolitician.7ReferencesCoolidge, C. (1925). Third Annual Message to Congress. Third Annual Message to Congress.https://coolidgefoundation.org/third-annual-message-to-congress/.Luther, R. (2011). City Hall, Binghamton, New York, July 2011, Original Vestibule [Photograph].http://nyslandmarks.com/cityhall/bch5.htm.Luther, R. (2011). City Hall, Binghamton, New York, July 2011, Council Chambers [Photograph].http://nyslandmarks.com/cityhall/bch6.htm.Platsky, J. (2019, August 19). Firestorm Erupts at Binghamton City Hall Over Sewage PlantPrivatization Plan.https://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/2019/08/08/binghamton-sewage-plant-privatization-comes-under-attack/1952912001/.Platsky, J. (2019, December 9). After $270M Revampl, Binghamton-JC Sewage Plant Will HavePrivate Management.https://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/2019/05/03/binghamton-johnson-city-sewage-plant-management-change/3661777002/.8

Participant Observation of a Crowded City Council Meeting

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Participant Observation of a Crowded City Council Meeting

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