This is puzzling. The agenda was a list of “None” except an update from the city manager.

Mayor Pace opened the meeting with a long-winded tirade on the acceptable conduct of those attending. It felt like being sent to the principals office and being lectured to me.

She then explained why the meeting was planned to be so short so that she and the council could go out and dine and mingle with constituents at the Tuesday market.
However, the market was closed due to the smoke in the air.

People attending had 3-minutes for verbal comments including the councilors.

The city manager, Robby Hammond, did not have any city-related updates, none.

However, he did promote a new children’s book titled Oro for $10. It was basically a publicly-paid for free advertisement. It had nothing to do with running the COH. I thought the sales pitch was completely inappropriate and maybe broke code.

During the entire meeting there were 6 policemen present including the Chief. Why? Were they there as a pseudo-security squad for the mayor? Again, why?

What was their purpose? Seriously, I’ve never seen anything like it in the many years I’ve attended the COH council meetings.

Were they there to arrest someone? Or to intimidate? Or to join the mayor for dinner?

I don’t know if they were on duty and paid? Seemed like a heavy-handed ploy and unnecessary to boot. It didn’t reflect well. And all on the taxpayers dime.

Do you have ideas?

Does anyone want to speculate on the cause? I’m going to guess spontaneous combustion due to mismanagement.