While the agenda for yesterday’s Wicomico County Council meeting may have been light, about 15 members of the Lower Shore chapter of Americans for Prosperity turned out to let their elected officials know that the time has come to make government accessible to the people. Kudos to chapter co-chairs Joe Collins and Julie Brewington, along with Sally Rogers for speaking up.
As I have mentioned before, this issue (which is near and dear to my heart) has finally been moved to the fore. Brewington and AFP deserve the lion’s share of credit for this. We need more citizen participation in our local government. The best way to get that is for ordinary citizens like you and I to attend city council, town commission, county council or commission meetings, planning commission hearings and BOARD OF ED meetings. Sure, federal and (to a lesser extent) state issues get all of the media attention. They’re the ones that tend to get our dander up. However, it is the local issues that can have the most direct (if not greatest) impact on our lives and the lives of our families, friends, and neighbors.
The proposal I proffered to the Wicomico County Council was fairly simple. I believe that at least 50% of all regular council meetings plus ALL important or controversial public hearings should be held in the evening. IF the council decides to move forward on this proposal, they need to commit to do so for at least one full year.
The reasoning behind this is simple. One of the primary arguments against evening meetings is that when they are held at night, the meetings are just as sparsely attended as daytime meetings. Fair enough! However, after untold decades of daytime meetings, the public needs time to become aware of a change to evening meetings.
Here in Wicomico County, it’s time for our county council to make a decision. It doesn’t need to be studied. It doesn’t need to be polled. Decide! Are working men and women going to have the opportunity to see their local government in action or not?
cross posted at Delmarva Dealings
10 comments:
if the council does not change the meeting time, you know they are only our for themselves. What a shocker.
To answer your question, No, they will not move meetings to the evening time for county residents, who work, to particiate. They are kind of like the chiefy, they do not want you to know what is going on or have any say in what is going on - you'll have to wait and ready it in the Cockeyed Times.
Nights or week-ends, make them choose.
"The people should not question their government.".....City Councilwoman Shanie Shields
Thank you GA and Joe for posting this and GA thank you for jumping in and speaking out about this issue. More people need to! Unfortunately it isn't easy for many people, in these hard ecnomic times, to take time off of work, to go to the council meeting in the middle of the work day to continually ask the council to move the meeting times.
Joe Holloway is a vocal supporter of evening meetings and he told me he was going to ask John Cannon to take this issue to a vote. When they do, EVERYONE needs to come out to ecourage the council to do the will of the people they serve.
I wish I could have been there. Working downtown, I got busy and have to stay open and downtown is shrinking year by year, even as taxes increase so making a living down there is getting more difficult by the year. otherwise, i would have loved to shutdown for an hour and voice my opinion.
Where are the Salisbury tea party people? They should run for county and city and get things straight!
What is the chance our reps listen to us and do what the people want? Do they really care?
People-don't you realize this is the way its always been done? Now you are asking government to change or possibly even interfere with a card game schedule.
Required reading for Council-"who moved my cheese"?
I like Joe Holloway, he is good people. I remember when he ran the Parsonsburg Mini-Mall. He's a real American, no doubt. Way to go Julie Brewington; sacrificing your time for a cause you believe in.
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