For the last two
years, during the County Board's organizational meeting in January,
Kay Stuligross has moved that the time of the full County Board
meeting be changed from 10:00 AM on the first Wednesday of each
month, to later in the afternoon or evening on that same day. The
goal was to increase the number of citizens who could attend the
meetings, since they would be after most people were out of work, and
not in the middle of the morning on a workday.
Objections to this
change never seemed to make sense to me; they seemed incomplete and
ineffectual. “Noone will come even if we change the time,” was a
leading contender. It was almost as if there were another reason
that no one wanted to discuss.
I believe that the
reason that no one wanted to discuss was, and is, this: with daytime
meetings, only people with flexible schedules can run for
Representative. Very few people who work in schools, the professions
or in most nine-to-five jobs have schedules flexible enough, whereas
small businessmen, farmers and retired people do. The former tend to
be Democrats, at least in this county, and the latter Republicans.
The cards are stacked against us, on purpose.
I'd like to test
the viability of this theory by winning the majority this time and
changing the time of the meetings. More people can come to the
meetings and have their voices heard, and a wider variety of citizens
will be able to run for office. Wouldn't that be interesting? Are
you listening, Thomas Jefferson?
No comments:
Post a Comment