I couldn’t help but laugh when I read about the recent uprising against the Republican
controlled Board of Commissioners on their proposed changes to the rules for citizens’
comments. It wasn’t that I considered their proposal amusing, it was the comments made
by some Democratic Party supporters who felt the rule changes were biased against their
cause that was amusing. Talk about calling the kettle black. I remember a number of years
ago when the BOC was controlled by the Democratic Party and they invoked a rule change
to limit commenters to three minutes in an effort to supposedly speed up the meeting.
Actually on the surface it wasn’t a bad idea, but in the real world it turned out that it was
implemented to stifle Republican commenters by strictly limiting their comments to
exactly three minutes, while allowing Democratic commenters to consistently exceed the
time limit. Hard to believe? Well, I can tell from personal experience that’s what happened –
it happened to me on more than one occasion.
My advice to all you folks who have a problem with what you perceive that what’s being
proposed is directed against you, is get over it. Without analyzing the merits of the
proposed change, you should really be concerned about it being implemented fairly. I hope
that the BOC does just that. And if they disappoint me and you, then all I can say is it is
politics, pure and simple.
– Karl Kachadoorian, Tryon