Forget about free speech! I wanna watch Matlock and go to bed early!
So Athens-Clarke County Commission meetings go too long, eh? Well, hell, tell us something we don’t know, Bob Smith.
As most of you already know from being the in-the-loop readers that you are, State Rep. Bob Smith has taken a page from Ralph Hudgins’ new book, “How to Meddle in Local Government Without even Being Elected!” For Smith, his meddling is in the form of H.B. 1587, a measure designed to limit the amount of time for which local governments can meet.
Now Smith says that the measure isn’t specifically targeted at Athens, but we think you all know that he’s fuller of crap than a Christmas turkey. Unless, of course, Bob Smith has suddenly taken it upon himself to represent the interests of Vidalia, or perhaps Powder Springs? Maybe Albany? If so, then perhaps he should run for office there.
Of course this thing is targeted at Athens, and it’s yet another attempt by the people who purport to represent us in Atlanta to usurp the power of the local government to, you know, govern locally.
Seriously, kids. We don’t care if you’re a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, or Socialist – you have to have some measure of respect for the system that gives us separate governments for separate jurisdictions. If you don’t respect that, then heck, let’s do it all the way and go in for central planning all around.
Do ACC Commission meetings last too long? You bet your sweet bippy they do. (As JMac puts it in the best quote we’ve seen all day, “Mayor Heidi Davison has said so, and everyone not named Carl Jordan has said so.”) Is it any of Bob Smith’s business how long the meetings of our local government take? Not in the least. (Aside: Does Bob even go to Commission meetings?)
The issue here is not that the Commission is occasionally a bunch of long-winded gasbags. (They are.) It’s whether the right of a free citizenry to question their duly elected leaders is within Bobbo’s purview to restrict. (It ain’t.) If it’s a legitimate local issue, and we’re not saying it isn’t, then let it be handled locally. We were kind of expecting this to come up as a minor campaign issue among some of the local candidates this year, anyway.
We suppose the big political question to come out of this is whether the ACC community is going to get as up in arms about this as they did about redistricting. In any event, much like redistricting, this is a good issue for someone to bring up when they run against Bobbo. Anyone thinking along those lines?
And here’s one final thing. So what if the meetings run long? Is that really so bad? No one ever said participatory democracy was supposed to be easy. It’s a job to be a citizen, and it should be a job. As a culture, we tend to expect the highest results from the least possible effort, and with democracy, that’s a prescription for disaster. Frankly kids, we can’t think of any better sign that the system is working than the fact that people stay up until 2 a.m. to make their voices heard about speed humps and bike lanes.
To sum up, we’re going to paraphrase the mayor. Qualifying for local races is in June, Bobarino. ‘Til then, keep your sticky fingers off our free political speech.
Related:
Athens Banner-Herald: “Burning midnight oil blasted in bill” 03/29/06
Safe as Houses: “Whither local control” 03/29/06
Daily Douchebag: “Bob Smith” 03/29/06
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
"Seems to me local governments ought to get a handle on this issue themselves."
That's the major point, D. (And welcome back, by the way.)
In a perfect world, wherein most all of us agree that ACC Commission meetings go on too long, this would be handled far differently. For instance, a bright candidate might actually choose to make this a minor campaign issue. Sure, it isn't poverty or mass transit, but it would resonate with certain folks, and it's also an issue that than be expanded into a discussion of the the way the current commission operates in general.
Anyhoo, said candidate turns this into a minor issue, folks cotton on to it, and ideally, other candidates have to address it as well. On election day, the voters weigh this issue against the others, determine its relative importance, and the polls sort it out. If it's a big enough issue, then ostensibly, the candidates who support cutting down meeting times get elected with a mandate to change things.
But here's the other thing. This bill is too vague. If you want to cut down on the length of ACC Commission meetings, then "do it or else," is not the way to go about it. In fact, I would guarantee you that a blanket proposal like this will take time away from the citizens. I wold approach it differently; take the time away from the Commissioners, instead.
Think about it. The Commissioners have one advantage that your random VP of the Homeowner's Association doesn't have - the ability to be covered by the press on a more frequent basis. For instance, if a Commissioner makes a controversial vote (e.g. Chasteen and the redistricting condemnation, Lynn introducing the frat moratorium, etc), then the ABH will give them ink, and a way to respond to their constituents. So, maybe don't limit the community's time, limit the Commissioner's time.
One final point. Some months ago, I, along with many folks on AthPo, was in the midst of fighting for La Puerta del Sol. Back then, a lot of people were indignant that some 800 people in Cedar Creek could effectively hijack the will of what the city at large seemed to support. This situation is not as disimilar as you might think. Here we have far less than 800 people (pretty much Bob Smith and the GOP majority) trying to hijack the will of the community (in this case to make our own decisions about meeting length). Just some food for thought.
That's an interesting caveat Ned. Perhaps the local government should set up some sort of form to send in input that can be readily sent to all commissioners prior to meetings. That's actually a damn fine idea.
And Corleone touches on a good point - many speakers do say the same thing over and over again, and from what I've heard from commissioners, folks don't particularly care for that. They tend to zone out.
Still, if folks want to speak, we can't say you can only have X amount of peopple speak. We limit the time, which is good, but I wouldn't support limiting the number of people who can speak.
well, there was a time, not too long ago, when you could choose any time and any method you wanted to contact your commissioners and let them know your opinion. That worked very well for a long time.
Then, some of the commissioners and most especially the media, began using some kind of scoring system about the number of people speaking at the commission meeting and that just f*ked us all! The ABH actually started this clusterf*k by smacking the commissioners around for voting a certain way when there were umpteen-dozen citizens coming to the microphone with the opposite opinion. Now, never mind that umpteen-HUNDRED had taken the time to contact their representative PRIOR to the meeting.
Then we have some folks (including many of you who post here regularly) that think that if you don't get to see the people speaking to their elected officials then it was some kind of "backroom deal". The fact is, at every level of government, you are allowed (even, encouraged) to contact your representatives to that government and let them know your feelings. There is no requirement that you do that in public or at a specific place and time. To suggest that this is some kind of clandestine and nefarious method of exercising your rights and obligations as a citizen is juvenile and insulting.
If I want to talk to Kathy Hoard or Elton Dodson then I do NOT have to set up a press conference to do it so, f*k you for trying to make it seem that my voice doesn't count just because I can't come to a Tuesday meeting!
I've heard this before and what I think the point of it all is that the commission meetings could be a lot shorter if people were confident that they could have their voices and opinions considered even if they did not speak at the televised meetings. It' the whole "score keeping" thing that makes lots of folks afraid not to speak in public.
Actually, I've always felt that the commission chambers look and feel too much like a courtroom (since that's what it used to be) and people get the idea that it's a "judge and jury" situation so that all the "testimony" has to be given right there. Think about it, though - all the hard-working commissioners are spending hours and hours reviewing the items on the agenda well in advance of the meetings. Only the truly lazy ones (don't make me name names) have done little preparation prior to the meetings. So, to think that it matters most what people say a few minutes before the vote is kinda silly. Of course, I want the commissioners to keep an open mind right up until the split second before they vote but, I do not want a score-keeping system in place.
Talk about the "voice-less" - how about all those folks who have to work on Tuesday nights? They can't come to the commission meetins so, their opinions don't count? If you have a strongly held opinion but your child has to go to the emergency room that night, you give up your right to representative government? You get the idea.
I'm beginning to wonder if the televised meetings was not one of the worst ideas - a good idea gone bad. I've had several of the longer-winded commissioners tell me that they think it's their duty to explain everything to the television audience. That adds quite a bit to the length of the meetings, too.
So, open government is not fast government - I can live with that.
Talk about the voiceless: those folks without transportation, who rely on the bus to get to and from... Let's see, the meetings start at 7 pm. And the bus stops running at or around 6.
I can't help thinking that if Heidi were really that concerned about poverty lo these many years, she might have done something to encourage participation in the meetings by the same folks she managed to provide bus service to for the PPA meeting. (dammit.) So a cluster* of those who profit from poverty deserves bus service, but not the average citizen hoping to be heard.
No, most people do not blog. Most of the 28 point something percent of folks who are living in poverty do not have internet access at their low-wage jobs, much less at home.
It's time to quit playing lip service to government by and for the people and look at facilitating real participation by the governed. That's why getting out the vote is... well, it's the right thing to do.
aquariusrizing
Well, the "outsider rhetoric" applies less to Smith, who does represent a small part of Athens, than it does to the few hundred other people under the Gold Dome who are going to get to make this decision which affects local government. I would point out that no matter which locality you choose to highlight, no more than a handful of those legislators are directly affected. So tell me, please, what possible justification does Jerry Keen have to make a decision about my local government?
As far as the ACC Government being sued for "false advertising," I'm no lawyer, but puh-leeze. Wouldn't we also be open to that if we had a scheduled meeting that had to be postponed for some reason or another? I'm pretty sure that that's happened in the past and we escaped lawsuit-free. And we all know that no one has sued us for having long meetings yet. So, I'm going to dismiss that as psuedo-legal scaremongering. Besides, there are so many other things you could sue the government for. Of course that sovereign immunity thing is a bitch, ain't it?
Nice try, though.
Local government is exactly who most needs to spend as much time as it takes to air an issue. If you think bills get ramrodded in the General Assembly, imagine how much worse it would be on a local leve.
Are there any true conservatives in Georgia state government? I can't find any. I can't tell that anything has changed since we technically overthrew one-party rule.
right on! Let's let any developer do anything they want if they threaten to sue. Bring a lawyer to a commission meeting and let them all just faint at the sight. We'll have this town paved over and cul de' sacked in no time.
Let's rename the town East Gwinnett while we're at it.
You missed the point entirely. It's not about letting developers, or the government for that matter, get away with whatever they want. It's simply about having a few rules for a fair and open process that voids the possibility of a lawsuit, and encourages more particpation at an earlier time.
Post a Comment