Now I want you to know I have been patient — I wrote about those two empty Planning Commission seats back in April, I gave it a full column, I said my piece, and I assumed someone with good sense and a firm handshake would step up and that would be that — but here we are, still two empty seats, still District #3, still just sitting there like lawn chairs nobody wants to claim after a potluck — and the way you apply is by mailing a written letter to 290 East Tessie Avenue, which, fine, fine, I understand the formality of it, but I want to ask something and I want you to sit with it: when is the last time you mailed a letter — not a bill, not a card your daughter made you send — an actual letter, on purpose, to a government office — because I remember when you just walked into the courthouse and told someone you were interested and they wrote your name down on a yellow pad and that was more or less the whole process — and I am not saying that was better, I am saying it worked, and we had a full Planning Commission.
And another thing — since we are talking about letters and offices and how you get things done in this county — I notice those same county offices that are going dark on Fridays starting in September are the very offices you might need to call if you have a question about, say, submitting your letter of interest for the Planning Commission, or following up on one of those new online permits, which I said in April are a fine idea for the people who live where the internet lives, and I stand by that, I am not taking it back — but I will say that mailing a letter and tracking a permit and calling an office that may or may not be open on any given Friday in the fall is starting to feel like a lot of coordination for the people who actually live here, and I remember when you could walk into the county building on a Tuesday or a Thursday or yes, a Friday, and somebody would look up from their desk and say can I help you, and they would, and that was the whole system, and it had a lot going for it.
I do want to be fair — I always want to be fair — the 32-hour trial runs September through November, the Planning Commission seats are open now, these are not technically the same problem — but when you add them up, and I am adding them up, you get a picture of a county that is asking the people who actually live here to do more things in more ways with fewer windows to do them in, and I will circle back on all of this once we see who actually sends a letter to 290 East Tessie Avenue, and whether the Planning Commission has two fewer empty chairs by the time the leaves come down — I have my hopes, I always have my hopes, I just also have my notebook.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.