Can someone kindly explain to me why at the state and federal levels legislators have the right to caucus with like minded folks but there is not that option on the local level?

Granted, I don't support any kind of closed door meetings and certainly not the backdoor bargins that happened in Knox County. There does need to be some way when party affiliation can be dropped and like minded folks can freely examine the issues in caucus fashion. Then after careful consideration of the facts they are free to vote up or down on any issue.

I live in a county where there is a solid voting block on behalf of the mayor. ( Blunt Kounty is all about the three B's- builders, bankers and the good old Boys ) Where even trying to talk about the impact an issue, one way or the other and how it will effect the residents- it is simply not done. Oh yeah, a few try but they are so out numbered they get no where.

On the flip side, the County Chair allowing the voting block to add issues to the agenda which were not scheduled is done with care free abandon. Screw the printed agenda, we wanna talk about this or that and rush the vote and most certainly not give the other commissioners or the public time to talk about or research the issue. Let's get this sucker voted on before Joe Public knows what we just did.

How can there be a happy middle in all this?

Mark Harmon wrote, "The public does not object to commissioners arguing with one another, attempting to persuade one another, and compromising with one another. The public only rightly insists these acts be done in public sessions and meetings."

I think this is a very important point.

Please do not gut the Sunshine Law by adopting the committee's recommendation to change the language to "quorum" instead of "two or more". The mess here in Knox County was caused by County Commissioners trying to interpret the unambiguous language "two or more" into "quorum" already. We voters are not stupid, when we voted for the Sunshine Law, we knew what "two or more" meant... that's WHY we voted for it. We also voted for term limits here in Knox County, but the commissioners were more interested in protecting their status quo than in following the will of the voters; which is why this whole mess wound up in court in the first place. We are tired to death of politicians that ignore what we, the voters, actually TELL them with our votes about how we want our government to work for us! After all, this is SUPPOSED to be a government of the people, by the people, and FOR the people... not of the politicians, by the politicians, and FOR the politicians. It is long past time that all politicians stop triangulating on issues and just start listening. This is NOT a partisan issue, although some seem to be trying mightily to make it so. There is more than enough hot air floating around these days, please LISTEN, instead of trying to come up with clever sound bites to explain why once again politicians are trying to TELL us what we want rather than listening to what we are telling them we do, in fact, want and need.

Thank you,

I can only hope that they actually listen to the voters. Local politicians, more so than state or national politicians, tend to operate on the level of the good old boy network. Corruption in government starts from the ground up. As the locals go, so goes the wider world.

If the people have any hope to retain control of their government so that it works FOR them and not the politicians and corporations, then local government MUST be held accountable for open and honest debate, IN PUBLIC, where actual citizens can speak about issues that matter to them. We can't all travel to Washington or Nashville to advocate for our positions on things, but we can and should be able to advocate on the local level without having to fight against secret deals and foregone conclusions.

If we want more people to participate in the political life of this country, if we want more informed citizens to CARE enough to go to the voting booths, then we MUST make it possible for ordinary citizens to affect change, simply by being able to speak in open meetings and listening to debate on issues. The more welcoming we make the participation process, the more people will feel like they are not just spitting into the wind when they do get involved. The more disenfranchised the voters feel, the more they are unlikely to even do so much as go vote. Our founding fathers envisioned a country where every person had the RIGHT to participate in the decisions that affect all of us, but you can hardly blame people for not taking advantage of their rights when it feels like an exercise in futility. I think that sometimes this is EXACTLY what political parties count on to remain in power, and that is a vicious spiral that we are caught in these days. If we are to change it, it must start at the local level, and it has to start in plain sight.

Let the sun shine in.

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"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali