Duman to host town hall meeting
Published 10:16 pm Saturday, January 21, 2012
Councilman Mike Duman wants to know what his constituents want, but he hasn’t been getting a lot of feedback during his year in office.
That’s why he has scheduled a Chuckatuck town hall meeting for Tuesday at Oakland Elementary School.
“I’ve been a little surprised at the lack of input I have received from the citizens of the Chuckatuck borough,” he said. “Especially with the budget coming up, I thought it would be a good opportunity for citizens to come express any concerns or garner some information about the operation of the city.”
Duman said the city manager and most department heads will be available at the meeting.
“People can ask questions directly to myself and the city manager and various department heads in a very open, non-threatening, non-confrontational type environment,” Duman said. “At the very least, I will feel like I’ve done my part to try to make myself more accessible.”
Duman said he wants to make the city government more accessible for citizens.
“You can always make an appointment to talk to a representative from a department, but there’s really never an instance provided where you’re afforded the opportunity to address anyone,” Duman said. “A lot of people have called and thanked me for affording them that opportunity. As far as how many folks show up, that remains to be seen.”
He said the city manager and city staff “have bent over backwards” to help with the event.
The meeting will start with a video providing a synopsis of recent city accomplishments and other projects. The same video was shown at the legislative dinner in November.
“I think that’s a very informative video that I don’t think the citizens have had the chance to look at,” Duman said, adding there also will be a presentation on how the council-manager form of city government works.
The event will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the school.
“But we’re not going to run anybody off,” Duman said. “I’ll be there as long as somebody wants to talk about something.”