the zoning vote no one watched

Last month our city council rezoned the block behind the old bus depot in a nine-minute vote. Fourteen people attended, in person and by webcam combined. Three days earlier a congressional hearing on a subject with no direct bearing on anyone in that room pulled national coverage across every outlet I read.

I don’t think the hearing was unimportant. I think we’ve collectively decided that stakes are set by audience size instead of the other way around. The zoning vote will change parking, rent, and traffic for thousands of people who never got a notification. It just didn’t have a camera pointed at it.