Repeats

Continuity is a great thing, sometimes. And this was the week of repeats. I am fine with the re appointment of Carmichael as the Chairman of the County Commission. The fact is that it takes awhile to be comfortable in the position of Chair and he has already been through the learning curve. He has a strong parliamentarian in Scarlett, who is returning again in the position and Kesterson will play back up as Vice Chair when Carmichael is out of pocket. No change, no big deal. Like I said, sometimes continuity is a good thing.

And sometimes it is not. Three things happened this week that were a flashback from the past and I seriously hope than it is the last and final time that any of the three are revisited. One-the Jefferson County Mayor was left off of the meeting agenda again. Whoever is serving as the Mayor of Jefferson County, regardless or political preference of affiliation, they are the high elected official in the County. They were elected by the majority of the voting citizens to be their representative and do the County business. To leave the Mayor off of the agenda is to leave the citizens off of the agenda. There is no policy or reasoning that can justify the action. It is one line item, plain and simple. And it should be included in every County Commission meeting, plain and simple.

And two, the Jefferson County Mayor should be at every meeting of the County Commission for exactly the some reasons that the Mayor should be included on the agenda. Certainly, sometimes things happen, people get sick or there are conflicts but those should be few and far between with an explanation to the Chairman that can be passed along to the people of Jefferson County. Likewise, every elected official that runs a County Office should be on the agenda and in attendance at the meetings. The County Mayor was not on the agenda at the last meeting and he was not in attendance at the last meeting. Two wrongs do not make a right and repeating these actions impacts the people.

And then there are the actions of the school board this week. Three County Commissioners plead the case for improvements at White Pine School and they indicated that many of their fellow Commissioners share their concern. They also requested a joint meeting of the County Commission with the School Board which fell on deaf ears. Some, certainly not all, but some players on the School Board and in the DOE determined that going it alone and developing a plan was the better option. Considering the relationship between the School Board and the County Commission, and the current debt of the County from the Building Program that isn’t even finished at Jefferson County High School, I would think that any olive branch offered would be considered a gift. I cannot even fathom not jumping at the chance to sit down with the funding body, the one that has recently funded more than 50 million dollars for school buildings and updates. That there is even consideration on the part of the County Commission for putting money toward White Pine School is mind blowing, considering the heat that some have taken for the current building plan. These Commissioners need to be able to sell dropping another few million dollars into the schools to their constituents and , in some cases, that will be a hard sell. One of the sticking points in the previous building program, with the Commission and the public, was the amount of money spent on building plans that were never used. Now the School Board wants to appropriate $25,000 for building plans for White Pine School before sitting down with the funding body to discuss the options and available funding. This just seems like another flash from the past, another page from the same old book. And, I don’t know about you, but it makes me wonder just what the thinking is. White Pine School needs help and I think that many members of the Commission are willing but my guess is that they will pull back so fast it will cause vertigo if they think that the School Board is not willing to come to the table.

Three repeats that should not be repeated again. We should all be reasonably intelligent people and we should not let or our pride or desire to have it our way keep us in the same old loop making the same old mistakes. All three are easy and cost nothing but the willingness to meet in the middle. No winners, no losers, just a bunch of adults doing what grown ups do. Learning from the past to have a better, more productive future.