Urbana Ward 3 Alderman Shirese Hursey interrupted another Council member tonight to express her continued irritation with the ongoing pleas from members of the public for more transparency and accountability in local government.
Tonight’s discussion was in regards to Mayor Marlin’s proposal for substantially reducing the Council’s involvement in approving appointments for a number of City staff positions, including department heads and several police command positions.
AAlderman Christopher Evans said “The public wants us to do oversight on these department positions”, to which Shirese Hursey let out a disgruntled “ohh, please”, which appeared to throw Evans off track for a moment, and earned some disapproving looks from the other Council members.
This would not be the first time at a City Council meeting that Hursey has interrupted another Council member, made disrespectful remarks, or shown distain for the rights of the people to be involved in their own government. In fact, Hursey voted in favor of illegal speech restrictions last year, a tool which Mayor Marlin used repeatedly to censor members of the public who shed light on the misconduct of her appointed staff. Shortly after voting for the speech restrictions (and citing civility as one of her supporting causes), Hursey spewed profanities at a public meeting.
Evans’s and Hursey’s comments at the September 7th 2021 Urbana City Council meeting can be seen in the video below.