Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

I came home from the Monday night Vallejo town hall meeting, had a later dinner than usual, and turned on the television set. It was time for NBC’s “Medium.” For those of you who have never seen it, the show’s format is based on a woman who is able to help solve heinous crimes through her dreams about the person or group who had committed the act in question. The program is funny, surreal, and well-written.

Each episode usually begins with one of main character Patricia Arquette’s dreams. The above-mentioned program began with what appeared to be an old black-and-white silent film from the early years of the previous century. It was one of the most basic of melodramatic plots: the unmarried woman with children and no money, visited by the greedy mustachioed landlord with his demand for his rent money to be paid immediately. Arquette, the woman in the dream, mouthed a single word, displayed on a caption card: “Bankrupt!”

Even synchronicity is getting involved in Vallejo’s current state of financial events. Not only do the national media seem to be watching, so is the Jungian collective subconscious.

The town hall meeting was held in the Joseph Room at the John F. Kennedy Library on Santa Clara Street. By the time it began at 7:00 p.m., nearly all of the chairs in the room were filled. The audience listened to opening remarks by Vallejo City Council members Stephanie Gomes and Joanne Schivley, followed by informative presentations by attorney Robert McConnell on the city bankruptcy process, and accountant J. D. Miller on the history of the city’s financial woes and dire predictions regarding an escalating debt that requires immediate attention. A similar town hall meeting was presented by the same panel and held at Rick Mariani Photography Studio on Tennessee Street four days earlier.

Both meetings also featured time for anyone in attendance to ask the panel questions on the evening’s subject. I was one of a few dozen people who arrived before the first meeting’s starting time but discovered the room had already been filled to the established fire code capacity (given the ongoing fingerpointing at the local firefighters’ union contract as one of the primary reasons for the potential of the city’s bankruptcy, the irony was not lost on me), so I was unable to hear anything but occasional applause from the other side of the studio’s front door.

Those Vallejo residents who stood in line for their turn at the microphone, resembling penitents en route to their moment in the confessional, had been instructed to direct their questions regarding bankruptcy and the city budget to the panel; instead, following the first participant’s willingness to abide by the ground rules, the majority of participants chose to vent on a number of subjects ranging from union contracts, Vallejo’s need to utilize “green” energy, a book written by one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic advisors, how Vallejo operates like San Francisco regarding closed-door deals (huh?), how new revenue will be generated, and the publication of city employees’ salaries. The most-asked question of the evening came from the audience members to these participants during their broadsides: “Do you have a question?”

Does anyone have an answer?

The panel provided three basic points that are worthy of consideration by negotiators, City Council members and our fellow citizens in the following days. Miller stated that this escalating debt must be stopped now. McConnell warned that filing for bankruptcy may open up a can of financial worms based upon the judge appointed to hear the case and the legal fees and time required in a matter of this nature. Gomes advocated transparency in government.

And a fourth point: attend the City Council meeting at 555 Santa Clara Street on Thursday evening, February 28. The time was not posted on the City of Vallejo website at http://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/GovSite, although it does mention the meeting itself. For additional information, call City Hall at (707) 648-4527.

As for “Medium,” I fell asleep halfway through the episode. A dreamless night for me.