The Hamilton County Commission is famous for its spit fights over spending - especially for discretionary fund spending in each individual commissioner's district.
In years past, each of the nine commissioners was allotted $100,000 in discretionary funds to spend on projects within their individual districts - often on schools.
But the practice took a couple of hits a few years ago when the state comptroller ruled discretionary money couldn't be spent on schools and when County Mayor Jim Coppinger said there was no room in the budget for the funds unless commissioners wanted to raise taxes.
They didn't. But a majority of the commissioners didn't mind going into the county's savings and moving $900,000 over to the county budget they amended to finance the slush - er a, discretionary - funds. After all, those are the funds with which they court votes by raising their name recognition through thank-you signs erected by grateful school booster clubs.
County Mayor Jim Coppinger vetoed the commissioner-amended budget, but a second commission vote overruled the veto.
This past year, Coppinger extended the commission a well-intended olive branch and bridge when he again submitted a budget devoid of discretionary funds. That bridge was a one-time use of up to $900,000 of the county's line of credit for large school and community projects in fiscal 2017. The bridge even had a silver lining: Because the money comes from a line of credit, it is bonded and therefore can be used for school needs, he said.
The one caveat was that because each commissioner doesn't have an equal divvying of the money, members of the commission must play nice together, plan and agree on the spending. And because $900,000 doesn't really go very far on large school and community projects, commissioners had to understand there will be winners and losers.
That worked OK for a few months. Commissioner Chester Bankston tapped the credit line with a $3,400 request to pay for an athletic field striper for Ooltewah High School in September, Commissioner Sebrena Smedley used $25,000 in October to help build restrooms for East Hamilton School's football field. Commissioner Jim Fields received $150,000 in November to repair Red Bank High School's track.
But then the bridge fell down Wednesday when Bankston and Commissioner Warren Mackey sought a vote to spend more than half the money - $500,000 - to replace the Central High School/Brown Middle School track.
The proposal needed five votes but received only four, coming from Bankston, Mackey, Smedley and Randy Fairbanks.
Every other commissioner abstained, citing the need for more information and questioning how using so much of the credit line might impact projects in their districts. Coppinger told them the half million-dollar expenditure would leave only $220,000.
Kudos to Coppinger for offering the commissioners "a bridge" as it's now described as a way to help the dysfunction that is our Hamilton County Commission through its growing-up process of agreeing and governing in public.
It is disturbing, however, that "the bridge" was never made public until the commission's discussion Wednesday devolved into a heated exchange that revealed it.
After the meeting, Coppinger confirmed to Times Free Press reporter Paul Leach that he had told commissioners he was willing to let them have a one-time use of up to $900,000 of the county's larger credit line for large school and community projects.
It was a hand-shake agreement only. Coppinger told the reporter that no documents of the $900,000 proposal exist, either in budget workshop presentation slides or in the actual 2017 budget.
On Thursday, Coppinger told the Times Free Press editorial staff that he was disappointed to hear commissioners' talk at the end of Wednesday's meeting of making amends "next year" to this year's supposed spending losers. In Coppinger's mind, there is no "next year" for either discretionary funds or another "bridge." And rightly so.
School and community needs are needs of the whole county - needs that should be discussed and addressed publicly. And despite commissioners' vote tethers to their district, they serve on a commission that represents all county residents.
Once again this commission's my-district-facetime tunnel vision, and the county's overall aversion to doing county business openly and transparently, should scream at every resident.
Coppinger's instinct and intent were admirable, failing only in openness and perhaps naiveté. Unfortunately, the children he's trying to lead into governing adulthood still don't quite understand the obligations of their elections.