Last month, council passed a paperless policy. There was strong disagreement to it then, but it passed.

The issue at the beginning was–or was supposed to be–whether to add the item to the agenda for that night. Council has a policy on not adding items to the agenda on the night of the meeting (April 2011, I think. And it was supported by all but Joyner).

Joyner accused councilors of flip-flopping because Mercer and Blackburn have been the most vocal in opposition to adding non-emergency items to the agenda for the same day, and yet both, early in the meeting acknowledged that policy and continued with a “but.”

You’re right though–that they passed a policy that wasn’t perhaps fully thought through is another issue. And yes, Glover says she didn’t like it when she voted for it.

And on the issues itself, that councilors cannot make copies for constituents (and I wonder if that really is not allowed under the paperless policy–I suspect it isn’t, but can’t say for sure) is one part of the complaint. The heft of the complaint is that it puts extra stress on some councilors and the mayor if they can’t just have paper instead of relying on technology.

Overall, it didn’t sound like any of the members wanting to reconsider the vote were being hostile. Yet their opposition mocked, called names, singled out council-members, and over all came across as pretty hostile. Was there a reason for this? I mean to me, a citizen of Greenville, it sounded like they just wanted to reconsider a policy due to not being able to hand out information to their constituents. If I attend a town hall of my representative I’d personally like to leave with something rather than having to go online for that document. And I am as computer literate and enabled as they come. Why were some members so opposed to this that they acted in a very hostile manner? When those wanting to reconsider the policy see that nothing will be added to the agenda in the same day, they conceded to dealing with it Thursday, to which some members began to be hostile to doing even that.

As for going green, I’m not so sure that ipads are more “green” than using paper. It is more convenient in some situations, and not convenient in others.

Side note, Mercer’s mike sounds like it is having issues, as it makes it hard to hear what he is saying in the recording.

Ironic that the UNA desires to be part of the NAB (thus the move to allow more than one association per neighborhood), but excludes homeowners from their meetings.