The picture above was taken at 9:30 this morning on the 13th floor of the Coleman Young Building and everyone you see filling this hallway is waiting to get into the 10:00 AM City Council meeting.

Today's session is an important one. It's the last one before Detroit’s $80K/year City Councilpersons take their extended holiday recess. The agenda includes big decisions about the city's finances as it, once again, faces the prospect of running out of cash. Council may also decide the fate of John Hantz's urban farm plan, an idea that has aroused the passions of Detroiters on both sides of the issue. Transportation Riders United is also expected to deliver to Council their assessment of Detroit's bus system.

Clearly, there are many good reasons why ordinary citizens would want to attend today's session. Based on the 9:30 crowd, it's likely many of those citizens will be shut out because Council, specifically Council President Charles Pugh, prefers to hold these meetings in the cramped Dr. Strangelove War Room Committee of the Whole room as opposed to Council's formal chambers in the Erma Henderson Auditorium--a venue more than capable of accommodating the public interest in governmental processes.

Unfortunately, as is the custom, the auditorium is reserved for Zoning Board reviews and the dozen or so people who attend those meetings.

We've been down this road before, but it can't be repeated enough--citizens have a right to sit in on legislative meetings. This is not the sort of abstract right that only exists in an imaginary government where Adams and Lincoln and Thurgood Marshall soberly debate the great issues of the day. The right to attend government meetings is memorialized in the Open Meetings Act.

And everyone, from the uniformed fire officials to the senior citizen with her "NO EM!" button to everyone with whatever opinion they may have about Hantz Farms, has a right to watch Council work. What's more, Council has an obligation to make every reasonable accommodation for citizens who want to watch them work--even if it means Council members don't get to sit in the War Room's comfy chairs.

Arguably, Council's set-up today might meet their legal obligation under the Open Meetings Act, but it certainly doesn't meet their moral obligation. Not when they deliberately choose to avoid meeting in the barn of an auditorium at their disposal.

Yes, anyone who wants to hang in the hall can have an opportunity to speak during public session and, yes, this is the way it's always been done. However, City Council’s historical contempt for the citizens it governs doesn't justify its current contempt.

When Troy faced overflow crowds last year at City Council meetings--held in a space similar to the Henderson Auditorium, though on a smaller scale--about the transit center issue, the city set up an overflow room where citizens could watch the hearings on closed circuit television. Detroit City Council has never attempted such an accommodation.

Why would they? It's clear from their behavior their goal is to minimize contact between themselves and the people they represent.

It's no wonder, given their attitude, that this sorry lot will likely walk Detroit into a bankruptcy court--sooner, rather than later.