Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Recent happenings

The past few weeks have been eye opening for me. I've dealt with people who are well out of school acting like junior high school children. There is a saying: All is fair in love and war. I think that may need to be extended to politics as well. I guess it's a good thing I quit expecting things to be fair when I was a little kid, because I'd be ten kinds of torn up otherwise.

I've stepped outside my comfort zone multiple times since the beginning of the year and it's worked out nicely for me so far. I was elected vice president of our property rights group, something that I was almost afraid to hope for. I've not been to as many public meetings as I had been attending, but when I've gone I've paid attention and I've spoken up when I felt it was necessary. I even testified before the Missouri House Judiciary committee last week about opening adoption records to adult adoptees. In spite of being terrified and feeling unprepared, I feel like my testimony was well-received and I hope it will make a difference. Arkansas' General Assembly will be in session soon so it's getting close to time for me to start contacting senators and representatives about opening records in Arkansas.

I've been paying attention to the Presidential race, even though I've already picked out who I will vote for. I'm so happy that the Republicans are discussing adding a resolution condemning Agenda 21 to their platform. I'm anxiously awaiting the county caucus on March 17 and I'm working with a group of like-minded voters to get ready and hopefully be able to get the delegates we want elected to go to the 7th district caucus and the state convention. I think it's a shame our Missouri state senators and governor could not get a bill passed to either move the primary later or cancel it altogether. It's just another example of how they waste our money. And don't worry, I will be paying attention when it comes time to reelect them.

Since I'm running for office myself, I've started trying to get to know some folks so maybe I can get elected to the health department board of trustees. It's an unpaid position, one I didn't even know existed until a couple of months ago. But this board of five people, three of which are up for re-election, approves the health department budget and the health codes for the county. Apparently I've thrown a wrench in there by running, because they haven't had to have an election in years. Sorry, establishment. I guess I'm going to have to start getting up at the crack of dawn the second Thursday of the month to be at their 7:30 AM meetings. Hmm, I wonder if they serve breakfast. I guess I'll find out next week.

Speaking of breakfast, I guess there's some kind of community breakfast in the county about every Saturday of the month. Last Saturday I trekked out to Bruner, where I met up with some folks I already knew and met some new ones. One of the guys told me which ones were the first and second Saturday but darned if I remember now. I should have written it down. I guess I'd better find out if that's how you get elected in a somewhat rural county.

The weird thing about living in a small town is that everyone knows each other and the folks who become "the powers that be" are your friends, neighbors, people you go to church with, etc. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily, but it certainly can make it awkward to recognize that a guy you, say, go to church with, isn't doing things quite the right way in his elected office. If you say something, you're gonna come across as a jerk. If you don't say something, you're not doing what is right and that could be bad for your city or county or school. Sadly, I think most people would probably look the other way unless it was blatantly obvious that someone was breaking the law and the closer the relationship, the harder it would be to say something.

So I'm gonna say this right now. Just because I know you and I like you doesn't mean I'm going to think everything you do is the right thing. If you're in a public office, you have to expect that the public is going to be paying attention to what you are doing in that office. I don't think it's right that people's private lives get delved into (no matter how sordid the love lives of the *average* Newt, Bill or John might be) but if you're on the county commission and you aren't publicizing the meetings well, I'm going to call you on it. Or if you're on the school board and you're pushing stuff through without allowing for public comment, I'm going to call you on it. And when I say "call you on it," I don't mean I'm going to say something to you in private or send you an e-mail or give you a call. Nope, you're gonna get called out publicly. It's gonna be on Facebook or in a comment on a blog. Or in my blog. Or it may even be brought up at a public meeting. Why? Because you're in a public office serving the public. Technically you are not breaking the law by only putting the meeting notice on the bulletin board at the courthouse when you could just as easily also put it on the website you already have. Technically you can start the public portion of the school board meeting early if the executive session wraps up early so that you can pull the sign in sheet for public comment. But it doesn't make it right. You can follow the letter of the law without following the spirit of the law and frankly, when you do things this way, it makes people think you're hiding something. You can hide whatever you want in your private life but when it's my tax dollars paying your salary, you need to be as transparent as possible in your public office.

I believe most public servants are there because they want to do what is right for their county, school district, city, state or country. There are a few bad apples and of course as they work their way into the state and national spotlight there are going to be some (maybe even many) who are involved because they are power hungry or want to get rich. Or they are constantly looking ahead to the next election and trying not to piss off the wrong constituency so they get booted out of office. I'm sure it's easy to do things the way they've always been done and go along to get along. But you have to be willing to do what is right. You have to be willing to make tough decisions and do things that are unpopular. You have to take the risk and stand up to the presiding commissioner or the board president or the mayor and say hey, I don't think we should do it this way. You may not be the only person who thinks it's wrong. You may break the ice and find that everyone else agrees with you but they were afraid to say something.

Or you may be left hanging in the wind. You won't know till you try.