week of 1/22/03
 
 
 

A good beginning toward restoring trust
SMN
Haywood County’s new board of commissioners took a symbolic step Monday toward restoring some of the public faith and confidence in its abilities that had eroded over the last two years.

The commissioners adopted a set of rules, “Suggested Rules of Procedure for the Board of County Commissioners,” that was introduced by Commissioner Mark Swanger during the board’s first meeting. The rules, for the most part, are similar to the guidelines followed by most public bodies and are patterned after the popular Roberts Rules of Order. Gen. Henry M. Robert wrote those guidelines back in 1876, and, with a few updates and revisions, they have been the bible of most elected bodies since. That original book outlines procedures for introducing motions and substitute motions, debating, calling for votes and all manner of other issues that arise when elected bodies do the sometimes boring, sometimes messy work of governing.

What Swanger suggested adding, however, is important. One of his provisions would prohibit commissioners from adding something important and controversial to the agenda at the beginning of a meeting. Another would prohibit commissioners from voting on important and controversial matters the first time they were on the agenda, while another says the board can’t pass a budget or anything else at the same meeting during which they hold the public hearing.

“This is an attempt to force us to weigh public input, to show that we are listening to citizens,” said Swanger.

Swanger’s point is a good one. For years citizens in Haywood and other counties have watched as their elected commissioners held a public hearing on, say, their budget — and then passed it right after constituents spoke. Those kinds of actions reveal a sad truth — that the public hearing was just a sham, that commissioners were merely going through the motions of seeking public input and fulfilling their legal obligations. They weren’t really interested in making any of the suggested changes.

As the courthouse debate in Haywood County heated up, some of these procedural shortcomings led to allegations that the public was being excluded from the process. One time commissioners emerged from a closed session and voted to take an option on land in Hazelwood for the justice center. That was not on the agenda. Another time John Queen showed up and got on the agenda merely by asking, and so land in Ratcliff Cove suddenly became the focus of the site search.

The final vote on Swanger’s rules was 4-1, with Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick voting against them. Kirkpatrick said two of the rules would “handcuff” commissioners, and he did not want to do that because important issues that needed to be voted on immediately might come up. If that occurs, though, a simple majority vote can suspend the rules. In the end, Kirkpatrick reiterated that he supported the “spirit” of the new procedures.

Simple rules won’t build trust. It will take time and a real commitment to listen to the citizens to do that. These new procedures, though, are a good start toward that goal.