Entry 206 of 338
By Confounded in Christiansburg On August 6 at 10:56 AM
Question One
Why include “Citizens Hearings” if you don’t want to hear from citizens?
Three citizens spoke on important issues last night. The final speaker addressed the need for noise and fencing ordinances, personal use of police vehicles, a 30-day response time for citizen inquiries and citizen representation on committees.

After the woman spoke, Mayor Ballengee said, “I’m only gonna make one response.” Then he asked her, “Did you vote in the last election?” (yes) “You elected the folks who are sitting here to make decisions on your behalf.” (yes) He then said, “That’s my point.”

His point was that they are elected to make decisions on our behalf, but don’t necessarily want to know what’s important to us.

The Mayor’s comments were a slightly less obvious way of saying “Keep that woman out of our affairs up here.”

The Reality
Of the Town Council members sitting at the table last night, only one was re-elected in the ‘last election.' Only two were on the ballot; the others had been elected years before. And, just because we voted in that long-ago election, we didn’t necessarily vote for the folks at that table.

The Mayor and the Town Council represent everyone, even folks who have different aspirations and have different expectations from local government.

Post Script
Two of the candidates elected in ‘the last election’ are still not seated on the Council. If Christiansburg seated newly elected Council members when other municipalities did, the Mayor’s question about voting in the ‘last election’ would have been meaningful.


Note: You can hear the citizens' issues and the Mayor's response yourself, thanks to Carol Lindstrom. Recordings of last night's meeting are available at http://historiccambria.com/Public%20Documents/audio%20files.htm