Amazing.
Montgomery County, home to the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg, has four elected, local governing bodies -- once you throw in the public school board.
Most of them are holding meetings on Tuesday, Jan. 20th -- apparently oblivious to each other's schedules (although they do have regular liaison meetings).
Add to this the fact Jan. 20th is already kind of booked as a historically significant date. The 44th President of the United States will be sworn into office. This is the first time since Eisenhower or Nixon such a transition has occurred when our country is at war. Going back to the days of those presidents many African-Americans were unable to vote, much less hold public office. Now Americans are watching as this transition occurs and history plays out before us in real time.
The Town of Christiansburg's council meetings already conflict with the Montgomery County Public School Board meetings. To this day's schedule the town has added the first public meeting for their website committee (which is set to launch by month-end), and an ad-hoc committee that is meeting only long enough in public to move behind closed doors.
Now the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors have moved their regular Monday meeting to this Tuesday night also. Why? Because of Monday being the Martin Luther King Day holiday. Surely there's some irony embedded here.
Open government is hampered and dampened when citizens cannot possibly be at multiple locations at the same time. Clearly, voters should not have to elect to forego witnessing an historic event in our democracy in order to participate in it in the present.