Community Meeting Review for Hesperia City Council

Community Meeting Review for Hesperia City Council

The Hesperia city council meeting was an experience that went above my expectations, and was unacceptably interesting. The agenda they had, that day was actually very entertaining, the first thing on the agenda went over a great, encouraging, weight loss challenge and prizes for people who had won the raffle tickets. After that, they had a retirement service for the people who were retiring, and I thought that was very cool to see how much they appreciated the people who put their time into the community. Then they congratulated the new Mayor Pro tem, and recognized and thanked all the people who had volunteered and provided and helped for the better of the community. At every meeting they give the public the opportunity to give comments to the city officials, which can result into personal change for certain individuals, and also gave insight to the city council officials, of what the public was looking for in their city to be changed for the better. Most of the people had something very nice to say, but there was one person who said negative thing to the officials, although I’m sure it upset some of the officials, they still went on with everything on the agenda, and responded to the situation professionally.

The Hesperia City Council that I attended to was held on the 1st of December, 2015. The officials that were present at the Hesperia city council meeting were, Mayor Eric Schmidt, Mayor Pro Tem Bill Holland, Council Member Russell Blewett, Council Member Mike Leonard, and Council Member Paul Russ.

The first issue they addressed was the Mayor’s 2015 Health & Fitness Challenge Results. The Hesperia’s Mayor’s Health and Fitness Challenge was a competition designed to encourage citizens to lose weight, while establishing healthy eating and fitness habits. By providing nutrient classes as well as weight loss and boot camp classes. Mayor Schmidt wanted to promote awareness of the value of physical activity in the pursuit of healthier, more productive lives and challenges. After the mayor introduced what the competition was and what the purpose and importance of the program, he then wanted to recognize all the help he had received and thanked all the volunteers, such as sponsors, the St. Mary hospital, registered nurses, Desert Valley, and Happy Healthy kids who provided assembly’s at schools around Hesperia. Desert valley helped a great deal by providing raffle prizes for the people who were involved and had participated in the program. The raffle prizes gave an opportunity to the contestants to win prizes such as, the Nutri Bullet, Ninja Bullet, and 100$ gift cards that went toward boot camp programs. This was followed by some more staff announcements and presentations. The first was a Presentation to retiring Public Works Supervisor, Jeff Bennington by the Mayor, Council Members and City Manager. They all took a moment to say a couple words of appreciation. The second presentation was to retiring, Public Works Director, Dale Burke by the Mayor, Council Members and City Manager. The last presentation was dedicated to City Manager Mike Podegracz, who received much appreciation from everyone, not just by the officials. Next was the Community Events Calendar by Rachel Molina, Community Relations and Media Coordinator. They introducing the upcoming events, such as the community blood drive. Finally, the last presentation was the Outgoing Mayoral Presentation, to outgoing Mayor, Eric Schmidt by outgoing Mayor Pro Tem, Bill Holland, and the role of Mayor pro tem was substituted for Paul Russ. Lastly but not least, they had something called public comment cards, which gave the opportunity for the public to either provide a comment for the officials or a question. After the public comment cards, there were no further issues addressed.

In my personal opinion I thought Mike Podegracz was the most impressive individual, because during his retirement speech, I discovered and learned new things about the city that I didn’t know before. I honestly thought it was impressive that I learned so much about the community of Hesperia from just one speech from Mike Podegracz. Another thing that caught my eye was during his retirements, people from the audience had so much to thank him for, and it was very obvious that he had done great change to the city, such as the completion of the Ranchero Road underpass and interchange, opening the door for new retail and dining businesses in the city, and ensuring the financial stability of the city. From my perspective, the least impressive individual was a fellow from the public by the name of E.T Snell. The reason why I personally thought he was least impressive was because of his actions. For example, they called up for the comment cards, E.T Snell was one of the people who had an opportunity to comment the officials, and all he had to say was very negative comments, which resulted in negative energy in the meeting. I personally thought it was very unnecessary, considering the fact that he had no back up of what he had said.

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