A clock for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard! @ LCC 2013-01-08

The Lowndes County Commission has deployed a clock! Where people can see it. Even the speaker in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard can see it! Congratulations to new Chairman Bill Slaughter and new Commissioners Demarcus Marshall and John Page.

Clock, Citizens Wishing to Be Heard, Lowndes County Commission, Georgia
The clock above County Manager Joe Pritchard, Chairman Bill Slaughter, Commissioners Joyce Evans, John Page, Richard Raines, Demarcus Marshall, Crawford Powell.

This is a welcome change from when former Chairman Ashley Paulk stopped Jessica Bryan Hughes at 4 minutes 39 seconds on 24 May 2011 and cut me off at 4 1/2 minutes on 28 June 2011, both times less than five minutes according to the LAKE video camera.

Speaking of five minutes, that’s the time limit set by the Commission in its own Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to be Heard:

6. Each speaker’s time to speak shall be limited to five minutes.

Maybe the Commission would like to follow its own ordinance?

This clock behind the Commissioners is only sixteen months since I suggested it to them, and seventeen months since I sent them and the County Clerk email with that suggestion, which is lightning speed for this County Commission. Valdosta City Council has been doing this for years. The Valdosta Board of Education has a plain old wall clock where everybody can see it, and they put their agendas online in web-readable form (instead of only PDF). Hm, that could be a next step in transparency for the Lowndes County Commission!

-jsq