\n2010 appears to be the year that saw citizens far more engaged in the\npolitical process than they have been for decades. Similar to the 1960s,\nwhen questioning the government became de rigueur, this year has seen\ncitizens involved in public forums, the election process, and many local\nissues that have come before local governments.\n\nTaxpayers want to know where their money is going and what it is being spent for.\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nShe mentioned that participation might make some people uncomfortable.\nWhat do you think?\n
\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Norman Bennett explained that the problem was that the community needed to unite behind the VLCIA so investors wouldn’t be scared away (no video of that; sorry). Then Meredith Ellis, who wasn’t even signed up to speak, begged to differ:","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,41,11,178],"tags":[4923,193,1747,1246,189,186,548,8702,12,185,5179,181,3413,183,5180,180,8749],"class_list":["post-2527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-health-care","category-lake","category-vlcia","tag-21-dec-2010","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-brad-lofton","tag-gary-minchew","tag-j-stephen-gupton","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-mary-gooding","tag-meredith-ellis","tag-norman-bennett","tag-participation","tag-roy-copeland","tag-unity","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-EL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/php\/include\/govt\/vlcia\/Norman.jpg\")
<\/a>\n![](\"http:\/\/i4.ytimg.com\/vi\/gyAMcX7CxQw\/default.jpg\")
<\/a>\nFirst Norman Bennett explained that the problem was that the community\nneeded to unite behind the VLCIA so investors wouldn’t be scared away (no video of that; sorry).\nThen Meredith Ellis, who wasn’t even signed up to speak,\nbegged to differ:\n\n\n