Attending a County Commission Meeting Emailing Resource Materials

¶ … Meeting Attended meeting of the Lawrence County Commission was attended on March 26, 2002 at 5:00 P.M. At the Lawrence County Court House. Structure of the Government Body Lawrence County, Tennessee has 18 county commissioners. One commissioner is elected per district to serve a two-year term. Each commissioner is then assigned to a different subcommittee, where each subcommittee covers an area such as budget, school, highway and property taxes. Each of the subcommittees meet several times a week to discuss their particular area.

All the commissioners then meet once a month where the ideas of each subcommittee are combined for discussion. Each of the commissioners are paid $200 dollars a month for their role. Observations of the Meeting The meeting was opened by the Chairman, with the roll called followed by the invocation and the pledge. Resolutions were then submitted to the County Executive Offices to be reviewed at the meeting.

Fourteen resolutions were submitted which included budget amendments for the Lawrence County Highway fund, budget amendments for the General Purpose School Fund, and a call to move the election from the court house to the basement of the senior citizens building. This issue caused some arguments with some people opposed to the idea of moving, while others were for it based on the fact that it would result in less parking problems and less congestion in the court house.

Of the eighteen resolutions that were submitted a few were resolved with the majority put off for further consideration at a later date. Opinion on the Meeting The setup of the commission appeared to be well-organized. Having separate subcommittees focus on individual areas meant each issue could be dealt with thoroughly. It also meant efficient use of the commissioners' time since at the monthly meeting, the commissioners would only need to hear summaries and calls for changes instead of discussing every issue at great length.

The meeting also appeared well organized at the beginning, with the chairman calling the meeting open and leading the group through the roll and the invocation. This beginning made me think it would be a well-organized and controlled meeting with the chairman able to control and lead the group. After the resolutions were tabled there was much less organization and control. When the resolution to move the election was made there was much argument.

This argument was not in an organized way and was not very well controlled by the chairman. This suggested to me that the meetings ran fine as long as there was no discussion required, but broke down when a questionable issue was raised. I saw this as a sign of a major problem and thought that the commission should have been better able to deal with this issue. In my opinion, it is easy for a commission to deal with issues that everyone agrees on. The commission also actually resolved.