Five citizens spoke up at the
7 November 2011 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
Some got answers, some got excuses, and some got fingerpointing.
And one illustrated how the Commission doesn’t follow its own rules.
-
George Boston Rhynes asked about
Open record requests and jail deaths
and got the same excuses he’s heard elsewhere:
nobody seems to be responsible for supplying information to the public
about what’s going on in the Lowndes County Jail. -
John Robinson asked about
Contracts on the south side
related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to
Title III Section 3 of the HUD program
and got a clarification from the Chairman that the county has no
Title III projects. -
John S. Quarterman asked the Commission to
video meetings like the Lowndes Board of Education does,
and got a slightly different excuse this time than the many previous times he’s made similar requests. -
Matt Portwood
asked the Commission or the individual Commissioners to state a position
on school consolidation
and was told they weren’t going to.
The VDT printed that much the next morning, the morning of the election
with the referendum on school consolidation.
They did not print Chairman Paulk’s allusion to
his already-known support for FVCS in opposing consolidation,
but LAKE published a video with that on Election Day, and you can
see it here. -
Tony Daniels wanted to know
How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job?
and had several recommendations for how the various local elected and
appointed bodies could go about getting us more jobs.
He also illustrated that the Commissions ordinance on Citizens Wishing
to Be Heard is, as we’ve discovered on many previous occasions,
merely guidelines at the whim of the Chairman.
Citizen participation!
-jsq