The City Assembly held a ribbon-cutting at 10 a.m. Thursday. The occasion: the grand opening of the Temporary Office Coordination Unit. It occupies a leased third-floor suite downtown, furnished with modular partitions and ergonomic chairs. The chairs, a city spokesperson confirmed, are rated for 40-hour debate weeks.
Assembly Chair Lena Voss laid out the unit's purpose in her opening remarks. "This space will host biweekly meetings to evaluate all possible sites for our permanent headquarters," she said. The first major agenda item, starting November 1, will be reviewing color-coded floor plans.
The office's mission statement fits on a single sheet of paper. It does not list an end date. Staffing is already in place: five coordinators, all hired at mid-level salaries. Their first meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday at 2 p.m., where they will begin with the critical topic of parking ratios per square meter.
Members of the Civic Watch Group gathered outside to point out the obvious irony. A cardboard sign taped to the building's glass door read "interim occupancy: indefinite." One passerby spent seventeen minutes examining the full lease terms, which were posted beside it.
City Secretariat officials confirmed the unit's funding comes from a rolling three-year budget line item. Plans for future expansion are tentative but exist. They may include forming a subcommittee dedicated to subcommittee seating arrangements.
