Lubbock City Council Approves Evening Meetings

At their meeting this week, the Lubbock City Council unanimously approved holding an evening meeting at least four times per year.

The resolution, offered by District 3 Councilman Todd Klein, ensures that the Council will hold at least one meeting after 5:30 p.m. per quarter, to allow citizens that cannot attend morning meetings to participate in the process.

“Worst case scenario, we get back in the car and go home”, Klein said. “We signed up for this work, and I don’t think it’s onerous for us to be here in the evening, and if nobody showed, it would still be important to do on principle.”

Evening meetings are specifically to be held when the Council is to discuss the involuntary annexation of real property, adoption of the City of Lubbock budget, and items relating to the City’s tax rate.

Mayor Tom Martin agreed with the resolution, pointing out that it was much different from Klein’s original resolution to hold evening meetings around a year ago. “Since you’ve narrowed this down over the last year since you started first presenting this, I can support it.”

Some of the concerns regarding evening meetings running late were also addressed. “We can manage a meeting. I don’t think the public wants to be here until 3 in the morning, but they do want to be here occasionally or at least have that right,” said Klein.

“There’s an old southern hymn ‘when the roll is called up yonder.’ Well, when you call the roll, I’ll be here. I don’t care if it’s night, day, or early in the morning,” said District 4 Councilman Paul R. Beane to Mayor Martin.

The Council has not set a date for their first quarterly evening meeting.