This week in my junior English class, we’ve been working on drafting essays. Often, the most challenging part of writing any piece of considerable length is figuring out what the hell to say to introduce the topic. I try to keep it simple for my students; I tell them to start with something general – something with which everyone can connect. From there, I ask them to narrow their focus to whatever their thesis statement is – like a funnel leading the reader to the main point of the piece.
They caught on pretty well, but I’m struggling to write a clever opening for this particular article, so I’ll get right to the point.
I attended the Madison County Commission meeting this week. It sucked.
Hook, introduction, thesis – all in two sentences comprising 11 words. Efficient? Yes. A worthy model for my students? Hell no.
For the rest of the article, my job is to defend and support my opinion that the county commission meeting did, indeed, suck. I don’t think that’ll be a problem.
Before Monday night, I’d only attended a handful of CC meetings, but I left each of those meetings feeling a mixture of disappointment and anger. Monday was no different.
Several weeks ago, school board member Scott Gatlin tendered his resignation from the JMCSS school board. Because that particular position isn’t up for election for several months, the County Commission has the responsibility to fill it, and because it’s the county commission’s responsibility to fill it, things became needlessly partisan and complicated.
Until recently (and by “recently,” I mean “until the TN GOP decided to strangle democracy by pushing municipal partisan elections), the County Commission was the only politicized branch of local government. School board races soon followed, but the CC will always be the OG when it comes to needless partisan alliances on the local level.
Before each monthly meeting, the local Republican caucus of the commission gathers to…caucus? In other words, they meet to ensure they’re aligned on how they’ll vote on specific issues presented in the upcoming meeting. Rather than represent the districts in which they serve, they instead make sure they’re in lock-step with their party. In essence, the Republican members of the county commission represent their party’s ideas rather than their constituents’ needs and desires. It’s great for the local GOP but not so much for the community as a whole.
Typically, these caucus meetings are relatively subdued, but the most recent one got a little crunk – and that’s saying a lot for a room full of middle-aged white dudes.
When it came to Gatlin’s replacement, some caucus members wanted Brent Lay (somehow resurrected from the 2019 headlines), while others wanted Marcia Moss. Remember, there were two other candidates up for a possible appointment: Dwight Jones and LaTarsha Hanna-Huff. Apparently, they didn’t have enough alignment with local Republicans to be seriously considered; Hanna-Huff received one vote, and Jones received zero. It was between Lay and Moss.
Leaving the caucus meeting without a settled candidate for the party led to a predictably inefficient voting process at the actual commission meeting and, more importantly, a district without representation on the school board.
For an appointment to be made, a candidate must receive at least 13 votes; anything under that number is insufficient.
During the first round of voting, no candidate reached lucky number 13. The candidate with the least amount of votes dropped off – that was Hanna-Huff. During the second round of voting, no candidate obtained the 13-vote minimum. This time, Lay dropped off. Dwight Jones and Marcia Moss were left, but one of those still had to receive 13 votes. Here’s when the partisan divide started to poison the process.
For years, the Republican party has had a stranglehold on the county commission. Because they are well-organized as a party, their power is immense. Essentially, whatever they collectively decide in the caucus meetings is what will be decided in the monthly commission meeting a few days later. Apparently, some Republicans got their feelings hurt in that caucus meeting, and they were hell-bent on proving….something. I’m still not sure what, though.
During the third round of voting between Moss and Jones, neither candidate reached the 13-vote threshold, so the person with the least amount of votes dropped off. That was Jones.
Because politics can be so damn frustrating, Marcia Moss had to go through one more round by herself to get the 13 votes; she was literally running against no one else. Well, no one else except for petty County Commissioners with hurt feelings.
At this exact moment, party politics (on both sides) got in the way of doing what was best for the community.
As I was sitting in the back of the room and watching each commissioner verbally make their votes – like an audible version of the wave at a baseball game – I could predict the vote nearly every time before each Commissioner opened their mouth. In automated responses, a line of Republican commissioners voted for Moss; the Democrats passed on the vote or voted no, but then something happened that surprised me.
In a moment of in-party petulance, three County Commissioners crossed their arms, stuck out their lower lips, and frowned – symbolically, at least.
Mark Aday – R, Gary Tippett – R, and Carl Alexander – R all passed on a vote rather than vote for Moss, whom the rest of their party supported. They were determined to be petty prove a point. However, the only point they proved is that they care more about their feelings than making sure District 5 has some representation on the school board.
To be fair, before the final round between Moss and Jones began, Claudell Brown – a Democrat – gave an impassioned speech about representation and how the people of District 5 deserved to have their voices heard, and I was nodding my head and mouthing “hell yeah” under my breath. But, I’ll be damned if that man didn’t pass on his vote when Moss was left on her own to get to lucky number 13. That was just as bad as whatever game the GOP 3 were playing by passing on their votes.
At the end of the meeting, the main reason I had attended was only an afterthought because the situation was precisely the same as it was before I drove to the meeting – an empty school board position in District 5. That can’t be what local government should be; that shouldn’t be what we expect of our local leaders.
I think we can do better; I hope we WILL do better. We all deserve to be represented in a thoughtful way.
