Seriously?

I received the following from Chairman David Austin’s email account today in response to my concern that the video from the Aug 23rd Board of Commissioners Meeting omitted the “CITIZENS WISHING TO SPEAK” part of the meeting.

—–Original Message—–
From: “David Austin”
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 3:52pm
To: tmilanese@cleaninter.net
Subject: Re: VIDEO FROM 8/23 7PM BOC MEETING

Tom,

One of the cost savings in our department is to reduce our videographer’s hours. As of July 1, 2011, the Board of Commissioners Meetings will be filmed up to the close of regular business.

Thanks.

Pat Tibbitts
County Clerk

Keep in mind that there are basically four meetings per a month that offer the opportunity for a citizen to speak. Since I really don’t have the time to go through all the minutes of the past 12 months to see how many citizens actually spoke, I’ll be generous and say one per meeting. So you have 48 instances multiplied by a 5 minute time-limit. That’s 240 minutes per year or 4 total hours of citizen speaking-time per year. Do I need to do an open records request to see how much we’re paying the person to produce these videos and how much 4 hrs of filming is saving the taxpayer? Should we then compare that cost to the cost of travel, meals, and entertainment reimbursed to our commissioners?

Needless to say, the excuse provided by Chairman Austin is laughable and an insult to every taxpayer of the county. How about we cut out the 2 minute intro, the 2 minutes of credits, and let’s go ahead and cut out the entire voting part of the video because two of the chairs our empty due to two commissioners not even showing up!

So watch the video below and keep in mind that while you’re staring at those two empty chairs, there are two citizens waiting to speak, and when they finally do speak, Chairman David Austin does not consider their voice worthy of the annual cost of around 4 hrs of filming time. Or maybe there’s another reason Austin doesn’t want your voice to be heard? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………