Friday, February 8, 2013

Arguing while Rome burns?

Though I was trying to spend Thursday working on Important Memos About Funding, I kept getting distracted by reports on Twitter from those attending the Charlotte City Council yearly retreat.

It was so interesting I decided to try a "Storify" story a way to compile Twitter accounts for people who may not be familiar with Twitter or who may not want to take the time to wade through everything. In other words, people who are neither as geekily interested in local politics or as easily distracted as I am.

Here's my account. "What's the City Council hearing, saying at its retreat?"  I didn't include all the Tweets; I selected those from reliable reporters and others, and tried to catch the most important topics and remarks.

The retreat started out in routine, dutiful fashion, as the council members heard growth projections and reports about each of the council's seven districts. But after lunch, at the end of the day, it seems tempers frayed, and council members some of them at least began accusing each other of lying. Voices were raised. Following it on Twitter was not as riveting as being there, I'm sure, but you can catch the flavor easily enough.

The result, unfortunately, was an extremely lengthy Storify story. But to get to the testy exchanges, you can skim to the end. For a more pointed account, read Charlotte Business Journal reporter Erik Spanberg's "Charlotte city leaders duke it out over spending, streetcar at Thursday retreat."