Are you a City Council or County Commission junkie? You know, the kind that likes to drop in on local government meetings and watch the real-life antics of your elected leaders and how decisions are made to spend your hard earned tax dollars.
I did it, for a living, at one time. As a general assignment reporter, I had the privilege of seeing, first hand, the all-too-often mundane public workings of local govenments. I knew very little back then. Not enough to really ask the hard hitting questions that our viewers needed answering. It was easy, sort of, to take the published agenda for the meeting, and pick one or two items of interest, and produce a story or two from that meeting.
So little did I know back then. But, I learned. Became a less than welcome fixture at meetings. Ahh...the pleasure of public servants squirming in their seats, not knowing what I was plotting. I asked questions. Some were irritating, kinda along the lines of Columbo. Loved that character.
You want to know boring? Regular local govenment meetings. At least, the part the public sees. And, local reporting on those meetings does little to serve the interest of the community. No better than so-called Government TV on local cables. By the way, did you ever see the budget/expense for one of those government TV operations? Wow. Got some nice stuff, many of them. That's another story.
If you want to have a little fun, drop by your city manager's office, or the county manager's office, and ask them to show you, in their budgets, how much money they spend for how many cases of bottled water each year. Personally, I have no idea. I'm just a suspicious guy. Although my suspicions started when I was at one city-function and was given a bottle of water that had the city seal on the label. Being curious...ok, being nosy, I checked out the label. The water came from Arkansas! Seems that city, in North Carolina, didn't think enough of the water it was providing its citizens, the taxpayers, to even get water from its own taps. It was trucked in. With custom labels.
You've no doubt seen the TV spot (that's the industry term for commercial) showing that Americans (not sure whether that's all North, Central and South Americans, or just U.S. Americans) purchase enough plastic water bottles to circle the earth several times. In case you aren't aware of it, the earth is about 25,000 miles around the middle. That would be, if true, a heap of water bottles. The most conservative estimate I find is that about 25% of the bottles are recycled. Part of the rest end up in landfills, landfills that are fast filling up. Plastic, by the way, takes about 100 years to go away. And way too many plastic bottles end up in our oceans and waterways, and alongside the highways.
Wonder what's wrong with drinking fountains? Employees could furnish their own glass or cup. Just keep it at their cubby-holes. Outside staffers could be issued a canteen when they start their jobs. You know, like our fighting forces get. Fill it up, from the taps, every day. Several times a day, if inclined. It would certainly be cheaper than buying a lot of bottled water. And, it would go a long ways toward saving the environment.
Back to the fun part. If you don't want to stop by City Hall, just send a note to your city manager or mayor and request that information. Then, share it, without shame, on Facebook, and/or write a letter to the editor of your local paper.
Ever notice how much fun it is to set off roach bombs, just to see the little critters scattering? Must be the same feeling for marines and soldiers chunking a frag into the middle of an enemy nest. Or, for people like me watching government servants squirming.
No comments:
Post a Comment