My first city council meeting

[Radar]

My first city council meeting
by Radar

It's sort of ironic that in all my years as a Libertarian political activist, I only went to my first city council meeting yesterday. It started off for purely personal reasons but now I was outraged by something so much I'm going to make it my mission to fix.

I'm considering opening a hot dog cart and putting it at a local busy carwash so people can have a dog, a soda, and a bag of chips while their car is being done. Then I got a list of rules and regulations for local towns from the county health department. Many towns do not allow vending carts at all. Not on public property and not even on private property. My town has a strange ordinance that says any vending carts must be constantly moving. I called to verify this with the business license department and was told in no uncertain terms (with the typical bad attitude of a government worker) that they enforce this absurd ordinance and that I'd not only have to move every 10 minutes; it couldn't be from a parking spot to another parking spot. It would have to be to a different address.

I sent a heated email to every member of the city council and showed them photos of my cart so they could see it wasn't a small ice-cream pushcart. Fully loaded it weighs nearly 800 lbs and is normally towed behind a car. It has a sink, storage areas, soap, and everything to make it a fully functional mobile restaurant and it will be certified and inspected by the county health department.

When I got to the meeting, I waited for the time when the people could address the city council and mayor. During the time I was waiting, I heard something that immediately made me so angry the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my face became flushed.

Apparently the town in which I live has heard of VoIP (Voice over IP) technology which allows people to send data packets of their voice over the internet to speak with people everywhere for much cheaper rates than they could get with the phone company. There are several companies offering this service but the most popular is Vonage. The city council of Gardena has taken it upon themselves to charge a "utility tax" on the internet providers in the area because people can potentially use it for speaking to people on a phone. As a Libertarian and a computer network engineer I was appalled by the nerve of these people trying to charge a tax based on what kind of data someone wants to send over an international network.

When my turn came to address the council I told them there is no sane person anywhere on earth who would consider internet access to be a "utility" to be taxed. I also pointed out that not even the Federal government claims to have ownership over the internet. Nor does the government of any other country because it is an international network and isn't "owned" by anyone but the companies who built the fiber-optic backbones and who paid for the incredibly expensive switches, and other equipment. I asked why the city of Gardena thought it had any claim over the internet and how they could possibly presume to have the authority to tax something they hold no claim to based on something as arbitrary as the kind of data packets that were going across the network. They seemed confused, and only the city attorney understood my questions. I'm going to do some serious grassroots work in the community to nip this in the bud and hopefully my region can help me out.

Back to the hot dog cart. One of the city council members sided with me and said he didn't understand what the problem is if I'm on private property, and the city manager said my cart could "potentially" be moved so it must constantly move. The city council member in question didn't think that mattered anymore than I do. Another city council member said it wouldn't be fair to local businesses that pay rent in strip malls, etc. I said whatever arrangements someone makes for rent on private property is no concern of mine and I shouldn't be punished if I can find a better way to do business.

I should mention that the city of Gardena is currently in the process of going bankrupt. Their fiscal irresponsibility has cost our small town several million dollars. I explained to the council that the last thing a bankrupt city should do is chase away new business. The mayor seemed tired of my talking and asked me to take a seat. I think I exceeded the time limit for a speaker.

After the meeting, several of the local citizens in the audience approached me and told me I was right, and they were happy I brought it up. I also met with the one member of the city council who agreed with me. He gave me his business card and told me to contact him at his business (a local jewelry store). I was also approached by the manager of a local card club casino who told me I should take a photo of the cart in front of the Sam's Club store in our town. Everyday they bring a cart out of the store and sell pretzels and churros and don't move the cart all day. I know the town won't go after Sam's Club, and if they can have a cart, I'm sure I can have one. This was great advice.

I am very happy to find one city council member who took the Libertarian view. Without a member of the city council to bring the issue of changing the local ordinance to the floor, I'd have to gather 3,000 signatures on my own to make it happen.

I'm pretty sure I can get my personal problem with the cart handled on my own, but the 4-5% utility tax on local internet providers is going to be tough and I will need help from all the Libertarians I can writing to their local papers so it doesn't happen in their towns, and also help locally to overturn this.