On the web
Councilman Dan Landrum said he will begin recording Signal Mountain Town Council meetings and uploading the videos to YouTube. Councilman Robert Spalding has been working for months to obtain video streaming for town meetings, but Landrum said making YouTube videos would only require a camera and a condenser microphone and would be of no cost to the town. Each video will be posted to the new YouTube channel Signal Watch, which can be found at tinyurl.com/SignalWatch. The first council meeting was expected to be recorded on Monday, Jan. 9.
Signal Mountain residents will soon have a new way to make their voices heard.
Councilman Dan Landrum is starting a monthly community forum to give residents a venue to publicly discuss matters related to the town.
Attendees will be able to discuss anything that is or could become a problem for the town – from selling the water system to creating an independent school district – but Landrum stressed that the topics won’t be based solely on what he or other town officials are interested in discussing. Instead, community members will collectively choose what topics are discussed ahead of time, and those knowledgeable about a topic can attend to address questions that may arise and offer explanations.
“The whole idea is to make it easy for citizens to participate and talk and discuss things,” Landrum said. “Multiple times today I’ve thought if citizens had an opportunity to speak more often on a regular basis, there would be less controversy in this town because things would have a chance to be discussed.”
But the meetings will address more than just controversial issues, Landrum said. They will also serve as a way to keep residents informed on everyday issues important to them. Potential examples include having someone from the Public Works Department attend to talk about why trash is left in yards, or inviting a truck driver to explain the town’s leaf pickup process.
Each session will be led by a moderator to keep the conversation on topic, but no minutes will be kept. Town council members are welcome to attend but will not be able to discuss anything with fellow council members due to state Sunshine Laws. Meant to protect the transparency of government, they mandate, among other things, that government meetings have formal minutes and, in many cases, an agenda posted in advance that alerts the public to the topics of discussion.
Landrum derived the idea for the forum from a weekly discussion group established in 1727 by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. The group, called Junto, from the Spanish word meaning “to join,” met on Friday evenings to debate questions of morals, politics and philosophy. From its 12 members’ discussions came ideas that led to the public library system and other solutions to societal problems. Landrum is hoping the community forums will allow similarly brilliant ideas to arise.
“I am fully aware that this might fall flat on its face, but it’s worth trying,” he said.
Meetings will be held the first Monday of every month in the Mountain Arts Community Center cafeteria from 7-8:30 p.m.
The first meeting will be held on Feb. 6, and attendees with discuss “Goals of the Community Forum,” with Landrum as moderator. The session will be followed by a presentation from Town Manager Boyd Veal titled “Signal Mountain Government: How Things Work.”
Visit facebook.com/DanLandrumSignalMountainCouncil for further updates.
Email Myron Madden at mmadden@timesfreepress.com.