Teresa from Hershey, This is an excellent suggestion, and I second it.
I understand that attending these meetings may not work for everyone-- I myself have lived in a couple of places where, truly & honestly, attending local government meetings would have made no sense, a total waste of time for me because firstly, those places were run by nasty political machines and at that time I had too many other pressing personal responsabilities.
But now I live in another place, a smaller city, where it is possible. And the more time goes on, the more I see how gobsmacking amounts of taxpayer money get spent on the stupidest and even hideously corrupt ways-- and this happens precisely because the citizens are not showing up and shining light on it all, and pushing back. The officials start to think their you-know-what smells of lillies and taxpayer money sprouts on easy-to-reach bushes at the command of their magic wands.
In sum, yes, your participation could make a big difference in the quality of life in your community (the bang for the buck on your dollars spent) and also on on your tax bill.
I realize that we have a covid forum, but I'd like to offer a related comment here, having to do with local government budgets-- and frugality. At the time of the covid jab mandate craze, I not only recognized that both the mandates and the refusal of religious exemptions are a violation of human rights, and that they would be vigorously challenged in the courts, and that therefore one day, sooner or later, the fired noncompliant firefighters, police, teachers, healthcare workers and so many others, would present a dreadful fiscal problem for local governments. To those workers who refused to comply-- a very large number of people, though the mainstream media has tried to keep that inconvenient fact buried-- the local governments would possibly be obliged to pay back the all the wages and reinstate the pensions and possibly also fork over for damages-- and this in addition to having to continue to fund the salaries and benefits and pensions of all the new jab-compliant employees who replaced the ones who got kicked out for refusing the jabs. (Plus, compensation for jab injuries could represent a fiscal burden as well.) I really do think that, in a least a few places, a few loud citizen voices on target at the meetings might have made a difference -- I mean, where it was up to the local officials to decide on the mandates. (That said, I realize this not was not the case uniformly.)
My own new city is a relatively small one and I would like to think that, had some city council member been so obtuse as to attempt impose a jab mandate on the city employees, my voice against that, both on moral grounds and on fiscal grounds, could have made a difference. Fortunately, however, it didn't come up.
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branchandroot
Re: Attend your municipal meetings
Date: 2025-02-02 09:37 pm (UTC)I understand that attending these meetings may not work for everyone-- I myself have lived in a couple of places where, truly & honestly, attending local government meetings would have made no sense, a total waste of time for me because firstly, those places were run by nasty political machines and at that time I had too many other pressing personal responsabilities.
But now I live in another place, a smaller city, where it is possible. And the more time goes on, the more I see how gobsmacking amounts of taxpayer money get spent on the stupidest and even hideously corrupt ways-- and this happens precisely because the citizens are not showing up and shining light on it all, and pushing back. The officials start to think their you-know-what smells of lillies and taxpayer money sprouts on easy-to-reach bushes at the command of their magic wands.
In sum, yes, your participation could make a big difference in the quality of life in your community (the bang for the buck on your dollars spent) and also on on your tax bill.
I realize that we have a covid forum, but I'd like to offer a related comment here, having to do with local government budgets-- and frugality. At the time of the covid jab mandate craze, I not only recognized that both the mandates and the refusal of religious exemptions are a violation of human rights, and that they would be vigorously challenged in the courts, and that therefore one day, sooner or later, the fired noncompliant firefighters, police, teachers, healthcare workers and so many others, would present a dreadful fiscal problem for local governments. To those workers who refused to comply-- a very large number of people, though the mainstream media has tried to keep that inconvenient fact buried-- the local governments would possibly be obliged to pay back the all the wages and reinstate the pensions and possibly also fork over for damages-- and this in addition to having to continue to fund the salaries and benefits and pensions of all the new jab-compliant employees who replaced the ones who got kicked out for refusing the jabs. (Plus, compensation for jab injuries could represent a fiscal burden as well.) I really do think that, in a least a few places, a few loud citizen voices on target at the meetings might have made a difference -- I mean, where it was up to the local officials to decide on the mandates. (That said, I realize this not was not the case uniformly.)
My own new city is a relatively small one and I would like to think that, had some city council member been so obtuse as to attempt impose a jab mandate on the city employees, my voice against that, both on moral grounds and on fiscal grounds, could have made a difference. Fortunately, however, it didn't come up.
Unjabbed Typewriter Collector