Did someone say agenda?

I miss Fred Rogers.

I mean, can you imagine if Buffalo Grove was "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood"?

Can you see the opening of the show -- "I've always wanted to have a neighbor, just like you?"

Sure, he could hope the Neighborhood Trolley, and hop on over the the Village Board meetings.

And today's blog is brought to by the letter A (oops, wrong show...but we're working a theme here, folks). A, as in the word Agenda.

Can you say agenda, boys and girls?

I thought you could.

That's big word, boys and girls. At village board members it might mean two things -- a personal platform that we hear about incessantly over and over again. Sometimes it gets to be old hat and the message associated with an agenda interferes with the message of the agenda, which ultimately interferes with the meeting's agenda.

Now, isn't that special (OK, I know it's not Mr. Rogers, but who were you expecting -- Satan? Or maybe the Spanish Inquisition -- oh wait, nobody expects them)

A lot of agendas. It's no secret that Lisa Stone appears to have her agendas. Surprise. But let's leave Liza on the sidelines for a while.

Her agendas seem to bother some people. No big deal -- because not everyone is going to agree with everyone else.

But when everyone's agenda interfere's with the agenda -- the schedule for a meeting (isn't English fun???) and begins to whine about it, it can get annoying. Miz Stone sometimes ::ahem:: goes on a bit and elongates the agenda, but at least she follows, albeit sometimes lengthy, the agenda.

One of the joys of municipal government, is that to hear public opinion, village boards, city councils and I'm sure County Boards, can interject public hearings into their meeting. Joy of joy -- something to upset the apple cart.

Public hearings are designed to focus on a specific topic. Can you say Special Use boys and girls? I thought you could.

So at its Oct. 19 meeting, the village had ::gasp:: not one, but two public hearings. Public hearings are akin to visit to dentist -- a sometimes painful necessity.

The topic of the scheduled public was the proposed dance club of eSkape. The first was to address Amendment of Special Use; the second Consideration of of Amendments. No big deal.

President Elliott Hartstein presides over public hearings in the same manner as he does over Village Board meetings.

No problem.

A public hearing, let's focus on hearing, gives village czars the chance to hear discussions about the pros or cons of a specific issue. In the case of eSkape, the first public hearing last two hours. Come on folks, I missed Monday Night Football for that.

There were a lot of good points raised. Include some by Mike Terson. Terson's a nice guy who ran for a spot on the Village Board last spring. He didn't win.

Now I'm sure he's not happy because there are folks up there he disagrees with. No problem.

During the Oct. 19 Board Meeting he presented some comments during the Public Hearing. No problem. It's unfortunate, however, that he saw fit to use the opportunity to take exception to what he saw as a change in Stone's position.

This ain't news, folks. Where Terson dropped the ball is he wanted to use the public hearing to vent his displeasure with Stone's position.

Time out -- public hearing -- not the item on the Board Meeting agenda for questions / comments from the audience.

Kudos to Hartstein for putting a stop to it and telling Terson he was out of order. Hammerin' Hartstein even use the gavel to emphasize his displeasure.

And that should have been the end of it. Wait until to the Board Meeting and then comment on a trustee's performance.

But no. Terson submitted a 24 1/2 inch "guest essay" in which he claims that he's not being heard enough at the Board meetings. Terson wrote that he's heard things that have made him say "huh" more than a few times. He's one up on me, I've said more than huh.

Terson, whose essay is almost as long as a Mega Bite, claims he should have been heard and Hartstein was wrong for keeping him from speaking.

Item 1: Terson's comments were not germane to the subject of the public hearing, so Hartstein was right. Terson would have done better to address a trustee's performance during the meeting's general agenda.

Terson writes that Hartstein told him the best venue for his comments would be a letter to the editor.

Item 2: Split decision. Hartstein is trying to keep the meetings focused and the Board's policy is to limit resident's comments to 10 minutes -- which is more than liberal. Where, if Terson is accurate, Hartein may have slipped, is telling Terson to write a letter to the editor. I would be more surprised this because Hartstein has been in public service in the village since Buffalo did roam the village and he knows the value of public input. His suggestion is valid, but it should not be seen as a replacement for public input at a Village Board meeting.

As noted, the 10-minute limit is liberal and the Board is more than willing to let residents respond to residents during non-resident input time.

The advantage of a letter to the editor, or guest essay, is it gives contributors a chance to put there comments together in a thoughtful, skillful manner -- which Terson has done - -whether you agree with him or not.

Terson might have been more effective if he took advantage of the resident input time and submitted his thoughts to the village board.

Working outside the agenda to promote your agenda is not the best use of the agenda.