I just returned from a thwarted meeting with Knox County over stormwater problems that we’ve been having for YEARS. The meeting was with Mayor Ragsdale and his unknown minions. When we (Renee and Stephanie, the new TCWN staff attorney) arrived, we were curtly informed that we were not on the list. LIST? There was a LIST? I believe Mike Arms mentioned at county commission meeting that it was an “open” meeting. Clearly, an open meeting with a list. So we hung around for a little while to see if maybe the Mayor would come out and explain this list business.
His secretaries became openly hostile to us and Betty Bean, a local reporter.
Michele Carringer, an interim County Commissioner, trotted back and forth from Arms’ office (I think that was the room everyone else was been squired into) to us in the lobby and tried to convince James McMillan, a local farmer who’s been heavily impacted by stormwater runoff, to go into the “room” and meet whoever was there without us. He wouldn’t. We still don’t know who was there, though Grant Rosenberg from County Codes cruised through and Chris Granju from County Stormwater was there one moment and gone the next. Whether Granju went to the bathroom and never came back or went into the “room”, I’ll never know.
Then the office became quiet. All the secretaries left and in walked two security guards. So now for the second time this month the fuzz has been called into a public meeting to, I don’t know, staunch the mob of six?
What is going on with public participation around here? Too afraid of the comments of the people you are supposed to be representing?
Perhaps everyone was sensitive over today’s ethics allegations. Yea, maybe that was it.
RvH
