The local daily has a long article today on closed meetings held by county governments in Western North Carolina. It reads almost like an article for the sake of an article, trying to stir folks up who have never heard of closed sessions. As it turns out, the numbers are way lower than I thought they would be, but I suppose continuing a session week by week can give the appearance of having a different closed session after every regularly-scheduled, formal public meeting.
Anyhoo, I don’t like them. I understand businesses like to negotiate terms and conditions in private, but they’re private enterprises. Government is the peoples’ business, and it is very disrespectful to exclude members of the public from consideration of donations of tax dollars to businesses that can’t stay afloat here but for extra government money. Rather than lowering taxes for all, governments admit their corporate tax rates are too high by cutting breaks when folks threaten to leave, but for. The worst part is inviting citizens to provide “public comment” on Project X or Project Granite. Here in Buncombe, we get to see Assistant County Manager Jon Creighton’s multicolored magical multiplier charts. And we get cussed out by municipal higher-ups for not understanding the opportunity costs of not giving away the big dollars to big business is not having the big business with all is magical multiplier jobs.
It’s ironic. If a little guy wants to build a fence for his dog that doesn’t exactly align with the zoning buffers, everybody from neighboring counties is allowed to whine and protest. But if a tax-exempt fat cat wants a little more cash, and that not from his world-ranked finance division, we can trust government to deal in private until the mysterious Mr. X gets his due.
