03.21.07
Local Government Meetings
Many local government agencies have meetings at least once per month. In our town, meetings are held every two weeks, on Tuesday evenings.
At these meetings, your council members will discuss and vote on issues ranging from taxes to restrictions on the design of your building to deciding what parts of town your kind of business can operate in to budgets for departments ranging from libraries to police to firefighters to water & sewer. They may even vote on funds or rules for the school district in some places.
When “BigNationwide Retail Co.” is coming to town, the council will often give them all sorts of things that they would not even think of giving to a locally-owned retailer. This is where your efforts at faithfully attending council meetings and occasionally giving constructive criticism or advice will help your business and others like yours.
Your council members only know what they have seen or done themselves. Anything else that they learn will be from people like you that get involved and help them to understand how the choices and decisions that they make affect you and others like you.
There is no guarantee, of course, that what you tell them will change their minds. Neither is there any guarantee that your efforts will persuade them to allow your business to continue operating. What you do have, however, is the knowledge that at least they will hear you and will know the effects that their actions will have upon you and your business.
