Swearing in and first activities

It's official. The 2009-2011 council is now installed. Our first order of business was voting for our deputy mayor. As others have noted, the choices were all minorities--Jewel Cannada-Wynn, John Jerralds, and P.C. Wu. Cannada-Wynn won, making her, I believe, our first female deputy mayor. With 4 women total on the council, there definitely is a different mix of faces to this council.

We have also received our committee assignments. I was interested to notice that each committee vice-chair is a newcomer to the council, except for the finance committee, which is made up of the chairs of the other committees. I am on the neighborhood services committee and vice-chair of the economic and community development committee. I am particularly excited about the economic and community development committee since getting good jobs to this city is my priority.

The council is now going high tech. We have all been issued laptops, so we can receive materials electronically rather than have the staff print materials and deliver them. Our first committee meeting this Tuesday (Monday is a holiday) will have a new look, with all of us sporting new computers. The big change you will see is that the council agendas are now more user-friendly, with bookmarks to agenda items and the text is searchable. Another step forward in open government.

Speaking of open government, I am getting a better sense of public records and all the other laws that now affect me. It seems that blogs are not how our forefathers imagined us communicating. Keeping a record all posts could get complicated. Therefore, I have set this blog up now to have all comments previewed by me, and I anticipate keeping most from being posted. However, I would like to start a dialogue with you and eagerly await your feedback. I will attempt to post some of your comments, or at least the nature of our communications, when I think others are interested. You can either use the comment feature here or email me at mpratt@ci.pensacola.fl.us.