Mini Videos of City Commission Meeting Prove Popular.

The City Commission Meeting of of May 15th 2012 was three hours, thirty five minutes, and 12 seconds long.
That is 3 minutes and 12 seconds longer than the movie Ben Hur. The latter had a sea battle, a chariot race, Charleston Heston,  three appearances by actors portraying the life of Jesus Christ, and an intermission. Ben Hur won the  Academy Award for Best Picture

Naturally our City Commission meeting can't compete with the  movie Ben Hur but one wonders if the acclaimed film could  compete  in today's hurry up world where everyone is just too busy. The same could even be said of Michael Jackson  when he was on top of the hit parade and on every magazine cover in America. Out  of curiosity, one day at the supermarket,  I asked my aging mother if she had ever heard of him. "yes" she said indicating with a wave the hand a stack of magazines with his picture "but I haven't had the time to pay attention."

We have had conversations with residents, are quite knowledgeable about the  workings of City Commission, but who are unable to attend meetings. They go to extraordinary length to get  information.
We see our job as assisting them in that effort. Last year public attendance at City Commission meetings  was usually two and never more more than five. Opening night for this year's commission hit the five mark again.

 The mini videos of this years inaugural  received 36 visits from blog readers.Theoretically that could be 36 separate people visiting once or one person visiting 36 times or anything in between. The mini videos for the sake of size were split over a number of days. The distribution of visits indicates more of  a likelihood  for  former possibility rather than the latter. Listed in order of popularity they are

1. 5/29/12 Baldwin Library and Cobalt Communications (City Survey)  Presentations to City Commission. 10 Visits
2. 5/28/12 City Commission Meeting  introduces a New Commissioner, Elects a new Mayor, and a new Mayor Pro tem. 9 Visits.
3. 5/31/1. Woodlands  Ordinance Public Hearing Part 3.Conclusion. This section  dealt with comments made by non-elected residents from the general public. 6 Visits.
4. 5/29/12 Woodlands Ordinance Public Hearing  before City Commission. Part 1. This section dealt with a presentation made by McKenna the City's consultant on the ordinance, 4 Visits. 
5. 5/29/12 Woodland Ordinance Public Hearing Part 2 This section consists of  comments by City Commissioners after the McKenna presentation but before the public was allowed to comment . 3 Visits.
6. 5/28/12 City Commission Appointments to Planning Commission,  Zoning Board of Appeal, and Board of Review. 2 Visits
7. 6/1/12 Commission considers possible Pat Hardy/Mike McCready vacancies and Survey Goals/Objectives to conclude meeting. 6/1/12 Commission Ponders Next Move in Woodlands Drama. 1 Visit Each

We  did not present the meeting in  it's entirety due to length. A copy of the minutes of that meeting follows so you may what was omitted.  We stuck to what we believed were the most crucial topics . They were presented in their entirety with no editing except a cut at the topic's conclusion..

Those numbers of visitors will change. Blogs as logs or diaries asks a new  reader to start at the last chapter and work backwards .For whatever the reason what goes unnoticed  today may be of interest tomorrow. For the sake of comparison two stories we wrote about the first two commission meetings of last year, which did not get large numbers at the time, have in the course of a year drawn 128 visits. That's why we are impressed by an initial 34 visits for the mini videos.