Public service demands that you do your job

Councilmember Mohammed Hassan brought up an interesting point at the last city council meeting.
Namely, that two councilmembers, Khalil Refai and Muhtasin Sadman, have each now missed three consecutive council meetings.
While it’s true they informed their colleagues — and the public — that they had to leave the country to attend to family matters, Hassan questioned whether they ever got officially excused.
We’ll give them the benefit of doubt and grant that they did their job in informing the public, but it again raises a point that we have brought up before: Either you can do this job as a city councilmember, or life events and/or work prevent you from fulfilling your sworn obligation to the public to serve them.
It doesn’t look good when two out of six councilmembers have to be absent for a lengthy time.
For one thing, it puts pressure on the four other councilmembers. If just one of the four cannot attend a meeting, that would not leave the quorum, or number of officials, needed for the city to officially conduct its business.
We are now experiencing the same situation on the Hamtramck School Board, where, apparently, two members are refusing to attend as an act of protest against the others.
A third also has a spotty attendance record, at best.
If just one of the four other boardmembers can’t attend, that would also lead to a lack of a quorum.
What’s going on, folks?
Either you can do the job, or you can’t; if you find yourself in a situation where you are unable to fulfill the duties of holding a public office, then get out of the way and allow someone else to step in and serve.
Hey, we get it: Life happens. But the needs of the public don’t conveniently take a break.
It appears that public service is not really being taken all that seriously in town.
Posted June 21, 2024