Anatomy of a Town Meeting (101)

       For arguments sake let's call this Anatomy 101, simply because we believe  at Wrightsville View blog that we will be covering our local Town Meetings many more times in the future.

High Impact Town Meeting...Your Government at work

       It dawns on us, that many readers may not have experienced a town meeting, either in person or by way of video broadcast or streaming on the internet.

       With the recent acceptance of  the donation of video equipment from local citizen Bill Columbus, the Town of Wrightsville Beach will join the 21st Century and numerous other municipalities in providing broader public access to government proceedings. This will enable our civic participation to become much easier.

       A key starting point is to understand how important your active input to our elected officials really is. Having attended as well as watched a continuum of town meetings it has become obvious that some elected officials skate on very thin ice. By that we mean, they have very little basis for what position they take, what information, arguments or data they reflect upon and consequently how they vote.

When operating like that, they simply are not being accountable to the citizens nor the complexity of the issues at hand.

Weigh in with your opinion to our elected officials

       Imagine a town government where the majority of it's citizens and neighboring communities are able to see and hear the proceedings on particular issues of interest. Whether you live here or not...Do you care about parking, traffic, litter, recycling, noise, boat speed, zoning, taxes, beach renourishment, biking, running, walking-the-loop, coliform in the bay or drinking water? That would become a well informed and active base of citizens and would consequently drive an informed and responsible government. Wow!

         A good discussion, weighing of the pros and cons and finding the middle ground across the group of officials in a town meeting can give a citizen a proud feeling that their government is alive and well and working in their behalf.

       Consider the alternative...elected officials come to a meeting unprepared, with their mind made up! Perhaps their close group of friends have told them they "don't want this" or "do want that"...but without the benefit of a broader open discussion of the issues. Ouch!

       As citizens, who have elected these government officials, we have the right to know fully why they vote "yea or nay". What pros and cons they have considered? What are the options? What are their expectations for future impact and what will success look like? What will it cost in time and money? What is the priority. How far reaching and sustainably are they thinking?

       It has become very easy for elected officials to ignore the wishes of the majority of citizens.  Simply observe how they answer a question...Do they side step or divert.. obfuscate? We have numerous examples right here in Wrightsville Beach of 3 to 2 Board of Alderman decisions that have halted progress on addressing important strategic as well as quality of life issues around our town. Of course the recent referendum to Ban Smoking on the Beach is a colossal example of a fed up citizenry taking on a town government composed of a few too many "out-of-touch" Alderman.

Please SLOW down

       We'll leave you here with a short list of past issues derailed by the 3 to 2 voting.

• Failure to adopt a smoking ban (took 3 years and a citizen's petition driven referendum to overturn the 3 to 2 vote)
• Failure to reduce the speed limit to 35 MPH on Salisbury Street (aka NASCAR Blvd)..just like on Causeway
• Failure to join the NHC Emergency Operations Center (Disaster Management) we are a Billion Dollars of real estate at WB
• Failure to effectively fund Capital Reserves for future equipment needs (utilization of low cost financing)
• Reversal and Stripping of previous funding for video streaming of town meetings. 
• Failure to adopt a strategic agenda and follow it. (Traffic, Bike Lanes, Recycling, we face significant challenges)
• Wasted numerous staff hours on rezoning of town property at fringe of salt marsh
• Failure to provide reasonable pay increases to town staff after multiple years of budget requests.  ("they are lucky to have a job...!!!"  are you kidding? did you really say that?)  

Nuts & Bolts  :-)

Next time we plan to cover more "nuts & bolts"  of the town meeting. We will also be putting forward a way to evaluate our elected officials and ways to communicate with our government officials.

Thanks for reading, get active, stay tuned for more..

Noah.. Oh, and please comment on our blogs.