Having covered city council and county commissioner meetings for more than a decade, I’m more burnt out than your average flyby stooge. Public comment now has the appearance of a photo op for persons desperately in need of power, fame, or adulation. With elections around the corner, Silly Season is ramping up. Hardly anybody speaks without hyperbole. Where is the plain-clothes guy who without fanfare just tries to keep the balance of power level?
There is a perception that government is a machine for getting people what they can’t get via normal routes. One common request is the old something-for-nothing routine. At last night’s Buncombe County Commissioners’ meeting, anger was launched toward leadership at the state and local levels for failing to continue to run up debt in order to maintain overextended spending patterns in public education. Through the ages, people who did not understand the finite nature of the physical world have sought perpetual motion, infinite energy, or even gold from base metals. One gets the impression that those hot enough to win a popularity contest alone are worthy to touch the lever that opens the gift that keeps on giving.
