I have to laugh every time people talk about openness in Concord city government. For years I have been trying to get them to post the schedule for fall leaf collection, but they won’t do it or even explain why. Weather and emergencies will of course affect the day-to-day schedule so it can’t be posted in advance for the whole season, but they won’t even post the “next up” instructions given to crews.
There is a lot of information on the city website but the search function doesn’t work very well since apparently no pages are tagged. When the current version came online, all the pages were renumbered with no back links provided so all stored “favorites” and links became worthless. You need to log in to “Report A Concern” so casual users don’t bother.
The city used to have quarterly meetings in neighborhoods when residents could ask questions and express concerns, but the usual answer was “we’ll get back to you on that.” Now they have been discontinued entirely. The best way to get actual facts now is to make a contrary statement at a city council meeting, and hope some city official cares enough to respond.
While most governments including the Concord school board allow public comment at meetings on both agenda and non-agenda items, the city council allows public comment only during public hearings on less than 10 percent of agenda items. For other issues you are supposed to contact your city councilor, of course to get a majority you need to contact eight councilors and those not from your ward may be less interested in listening to you.
Roy Schweiker
Concord