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City-Bureau
Why Doesn't the Department of Water Management Host Meetings?
Are you curious? Give the Department of Water call, ask them, and let us know. This is reporting 101 and you can do it while helping the City Scrapers project! Here's the number: 312.744.4420
Feel free to say you're calling as a Documenter for City Bureau. You'll want to get a hold of someone in the communications office (if they have one) or the Deputy Commissioner of Administrative Support.
Dept. Water Management website: https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/water.html
I talked with Megan Vidis who is listed as "PR -- Water Management" in the city directory (312-744-8758). She said that they don't hold public meetings because it's "not part of the work they do" -- she said since their work is managing the sewage system, infrastructure, rather than public facing projects.
I think I could have asked more follow up questions but wasn't quite sure how much to push/if at all on the importance of public meetings at all (compared to posting them online...)
I can call back and ask more if needed!
Hey @kappklot another avenue to follow would be to figure out how certain departments come to have boards and public facing meetings in the first place. Some have ordinances stipulating the board makeup and the format for meetings and some departments seem to just not have ordinances or meetings at all. I'll be honest, I don't understand the process and would love to.
If you're interested, please feel free to do a bit of digging—I'd be happy to bounce ideas around on this.
Side note: I'm also curious why the Cook County Sheriff doesn't hold any meetings or have a board of directors...
@diaholliday this is really interesting! definitely interested in brainstorming/thinking more about this. i'm going to ask around as well.
I also might try to cold call the Cook County Sheriff's office this week, just to see.
You should! That office has been responsive in the past. If you get the same answer, we'll know where to start (i.e. with some research into how ordinances mandating boards and public meetings are created and when they've been created in the past or, more importantly, what levers, if any, exist to establish public meetings for departments that don't have them)
Ex: Page 37: https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/ethics/general/Ordinances/GEO-July2013.pdf Ex: http://www.cpsboe.org/about Ex: https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cpb/supp_info/MCC.pdf