By Jerry Riley

I asked an Alderman how his meeting was going to be. He told me it was going to be boring. I attended the meeting, and, he was right, it was boring. I’ve attended several meetings, both Eureka and Woodford County, that really were boring.
The fact is that all these meetings were important to keep their unit of government up-to-date, accurate and operating in the best interest of the citizens. Yes, they were boring, meticulous and time consuming, but our elected employees have to tackle these tasks. I often poke fun at some things that happen (and they make it easy) but I feel that all citizens need to know that they are doing what the job requires.
I attended a three-hour budget meeting– not the most riveting meeting I’ve every attended, but it was really important. It is interesting to hear the pros and cons of an issue or just the reasons some things have to be done while other have to wait.
At some meetings, however, the members use terms and acronyms that may all be familiar to them, but not to most of the citizen-spectators, probably. There are many barely audible conversations between two members. Sometimes board/council members will refer to mysterious abbreviations or the numbers of paragraphs of documents that are not available to everyone attending. I realize that making copies for everyone would be expensive, but maybe those items being referred to could be read openly (publicly) to those present.
So, although the meeting is physically open to the public, some of the content, which should be discussed in public, actually is not and, what a revoltin’ development this is!

Jerry Riley is an occasional commentator for the News Bulletin. He is a retired telecommunications supervisor