By Helen Borland / Staff

Ga. Governor Sonny Perdue prayed for rain. Former Ga. House Speaker Glenn Richardson prayed for forgiveness. Now Roswell Councilwoman Betty Price wants to pray for civility.

Having served on Roswell City Council for three months, Betty Price says she now feels comfortable to bring up a controversial topic she wants to see instituted: public prayer before Roswell's government meetings.

IT STARTED WITH THE "GOALS" SESSION

Roswell Mayor Jere Wood asked each of the council members to come to the first work session in January with their goals for the year. This is where Price first proposed prayer before meetings. It was subsequently brought up at the next council meeting.

Price's prayer plan met no overt opposition by fellow council members in either gathering, but the only elected official who actually voiced enthusiasm for the vigil at the initial workshop was Wood. "I support prayer but I don’t want to put another burden on staff," Wood said. "I suggested we all commit to recommending people [pastors, priests, rabbis, etc.] to come say the prayer, and each council member, not staff, would be responsible for getting those people to some meetings every year." Wood added that if the person invited by a council member didn’t show up, that council member would then lead the prayer.

PRICE PRAYS FOR CIVILITY

Price defended her position. "The impression I had was that the city council sometimes lost its civility toward one another during the council meetings. I hope that through starting our meetings with an invocation perhaps it could set the overall tone to one of reconciliation and better relations." Price said she is not promoting one religion over another and the prayer is not meant to proselytize. She feels it's an attempt to "reconnect to our core values that are definitely based in a variety of faith traditions."

Nancy Diamond, a council member who was just elected in November, said she appreciated Price's efforts to set a cordial tone for the meetings. She added that it "would need to be inclusive of the variety of faiths we have in Roswell."

TOO MANY MEETINGS, ANYWAY

The Roswell City Council had the first reading last week to change how many times they meet each month. Currently, the City Council meets three times a month. The first and third Mondays are to conduct city business and the second Monday is to address zoning issues. They will continue to have an open mic format for each fifth Monday of the month.

Now the council wants to combine zoning issues with one of meetings and cut the schedule down to twice each month.

Councilman Jerry Orlans threw out the idea of moving the meetings from the first and third Mondays to the second and fourth Mondays. Wood said he opposed the schedule shift for two reasons. "Currently, the bimonthly committee meeting times coordinate with the council meetings and they would all have to be moved," Wood claimed. Secondly, Wood says he doesn’t like the idea of having a council meeting between Christmas and New Years.

As it is, the council has already moved two meetings in 2010 because of federal holidays and they will move two more meetings for the same reason before the end of the year. If the meetings were changed to the second and fourth Mondays, no more meeting dates will have to be changed for 2010, and no meetings would have to be rescheduled at all in 2011.

But one local activist, Eileen Seidman, blasted both proposals. "Less meetings mean less transparency in our local government," Seidman claimed. She also voiced strong opposition to Price's prayer initiative. "This concept violates the clear separation of church and state," Seidman said. "We can pray anywhere we like privately, but this public initiative is misguided and intrusive."

The council is also considering moving the start time from 7:30 to 7:00 pm. Seidman noted moving the time to 7:00 PM would make it impossible for working people that live east of 400 to get though the tail end of the rush hour traffic in time for the opening of the Council meeting. "7:15 PM would be a better idea," Seidman suggested.