Thursday, July 24, 2008
Editorial: Move supervisors' meetings to evenings
Botetourt County and others with day meetings should embrace the night.
From the RoundTable blog
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The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors is thinking about moving its meetings to the evenings. That is an excellent idea.
People work. They have jobs during the day and cannot get away to attend government meetings. Maybe if some hot topic appears on the agenda, a few particularly dedicated citizens might burn a vacation day to speak before their elected officials, but that is an awful lot to ask.
Supervisors would instead exclude people with night jobs if they shift their meeting time, but day workers outnumber night. Evening meetings create the most accessibility for the most citizens.
Many communities successfully take roll call after 5 p.m., including Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Salem, Radford and Montgomery County, to name a few. In Roanoke and Roanoke County, public hearings take place in the evening, and the new mayor wants the council to hold some evening neighborhood meetings.
Meanwhile Botetourt and other locales force people to choose between daytime responsibilities and taking a role in their government. Giles County supervisors meet at 10; Floyd County, 8:30; Franklin County, 1:30.
Day meetings also undermine the very quality of elected bodies. Many people cannot run for office on boards or councils that meet during the day.
Precious few employers will allow a worker to get away for a day or two every month to serve on a council or board. Absent such benevolence, only retirees, the very wealthy, self-employed and unemployed can realistically seek election. As a result, boards and councils do not represent the diversity of a community.
The only downside of night meetings is that sometimes they run late. Officials might find themselves debating land-use policy past 11. That is a small inconvenience next to the value of government open to the people.
Perhaps communities like Botetourt take the whole "sunshine in government" thing a little too literally. They hold their meetings during daylight hours when the fewest people can attend. Paradoxically, when it comes to government meetings, the sun shines brightest after dark.
