Boys Night Out was attracting favorable reviews this afternoon.
Away from bright lights, cameras and the whole darned world except for 8 curious souls in the audience, the City Council and 10 titled persons from City Hall caravanned to the shiny new Courtyard by Marriott hotel on Bristol Parkway in Fox Hills last night for what Councilman Chris Armenta called “a bonding session.”
It also was called a retreat and a planning session, vague enough terms to defy clues.
City Manager Jerry Fulwood did an excellent job of keeping the players in the dark, going into the hotel. No agenda, no plan. Still it worked.
Not that historic business was transacted, but the two sides seemed to develop more collegial, comfortable feelings and understandings about each other.
Where Is the Record?
Nobody really was looking, no one was writing down what the participants said, so they felt free to kick back.
“We al walked away feeling pretty good,” Mr. Armenta said. “Nobody got mad or upset or anything like that.”
The evening was designed by Mr. Fulwood as an outing when two sides who don’t know each other very well — 60 percent of the City Council is new — could sit around a common table, which they never do.
It was to be as if no one else were in the room because the eight residents who showed up were not allowed to speak.
Councilman Mehaul O’Leary thought that was a kick, in reverse, because one hour into the 3-hour session, dinner was served to the participants, and once again the audience was only allowed to sit and stare without commenting. “I was a little embarrassed,” the Irishman said.
“I have been through a number of these retreats,” said Mr. Armenta, the former City Clerk, “and they are always different. This was a good one.”
Getting to Know You — and Them
Mr. O’Leary said he came away satisfied “because it was a great opportunity for us to tell other Council members and staff where we are headed.”
At the outset of the session, both Mr. O’Leary and Mr. Armenta looked in the direction of Mr. Fulwood and expressed the same thought: “It would have been nice if we had known what the evening was going to be about so we could have done some preparation.”
But they were shortly relieved because the evening packed the trappings of a picnic, and who lays out a script for a picnic?
“It was pretty interesting hearing what all of the Council members had to say when there wasn’t any spotlight,” said Andy Weissman, the third new member of the City Council.
He concluded that the evening resembled a workshop, and that it was more of a philosophical exercise than about specificity.
What Ever Happened to Wisdom?
Not much chance that it would have happened back at home base, in Council Chambers, but one City Hall staffer felt relaxed enough to offer the slightly unorthodox opinion that the Council’s decision to pursue a hometown animal control officer last month “was a dumb idea.”
One visitor noted with surprise that Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and Mr. Fulwood, the City Manager, tread the same philosophical trail, saying that after doing things the same way for years, it always is beneficial to try out new patterns.
If you just keep doing things the same way, you tend to grow stale, Mr. Silbiger said.
In that spirit, he spoke hopefully of fattening the city’s coffers in the new fiscal year that started yesterday. This is a caring city, said the vice mayor, and we need to do more than we are to help people in need.
