Jay GreesonThe Hamilton County Commission got together Wednesday.
The commissioners do that. It's kind of like a book club, only more times than not they are a little more sensitive and the book they are discussing most often is the county budget.
The sensitive thing is human nature. We are at a place today when one person's question feels like another person's accusation. Hey, it's the continued societal ripple effect of everyone getting a trophy and no one accepting blame.
For the most part, most of the weekly Wednesday commission carousel is policy and circumstances.
But when the announcements start, man, that's when you need to be paying attention.
Sure, they can be filled with the occasional community shout-out - "Would like to welcome the Illustrious Potentate of the Harrison chapter of the International Buffalos" or what have you - and that's fine.
You also have the back-patting that can happen, be it a local sports team or whomever has recycled the most plastic bottles in Sale Creek.
Wednesday was the rare day that the announcements should have been called to order by Michael Buffer, the world-renowned ring announcer who made "Let's get ready to RUUUUUMMMMMBLE!" famous.
It was part "Lord of the Flies," part "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."
First, there was Joe Graham, who has never been shy about speaking his mind from the dais, an attribute that has served him well and one that I wish more elected officials embraced.
Graham took issue with fellow Commissioner Tim Boyd taking issue with the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Boyd in the last week has come under some big fire from some of the bigger names behind some of the biggest local tourist draws around town for raising questions about the bureau's budget. The CVB, you see, gets all of the county's portion of the hotel/motel tax and operates with a budget in the $7 million to $8 million range.
Graham's contention that spending as much as $8 million - money collected from tourists rather than taxpayers, mind you - for the publicity and recruiting arm of a billion-dollar industry makes great business sense is completely fair.
That said, for Boyd, chairman of the county's finance committee, to raise questions about any and all budgets under the commission umbrella is also fair.
The back-and-forth makes for good discourse and even better management of our resources, as long as folks don't get their Jockeys in a bunch.
I truly believe the efforts of Bob Doak and the CVB are rewarding and beneficial to the city and the county. But in the last couple of commission meetings I have attended, the lingering whispers of potential tax increases on the horizon magnify the need for closer, pre-emptive scrutiny of our county governmental finances, across all platforms. When the next budget numbers come home, every branch needs to account for its seed money and justify it with proper fruits.
If that was all, it would have been plenty, but then Boyd answered Graham. Again, when you have a political discussion in which each side has a point, if you can remove emotion, the ultimate outcome has a 300 percent better chance of being beneficial.
Boyd started his response with "All due respect," which I have learned is the political-discourse equivalent of the old-Southern Baptist all-purpose cover-all "Bless their hearts," and went from there.
Again, if this one issue was it, it would have been more exciting than everything else at the meeting, including the big news of a design firm being picked for the Walden firehouse. (Yippee.)
Boyd then went on to apologize for his wayward text message to school board member Joe Smith. As this paper's education writer Kendi Rainwater reported in Wednesday's paper, Boyd went a little over the top in his communication with Smith before the school board reviewed and ranked the facilities it deemed most worthy of addressing.
Good stuff, right?
Wait, there's more.
As the clock was ticking down and the folks were checking their watches, Commissioner Greg Beck dropped this not-so-little bombshell: He wants the remaining money from $900,000 allotted to the commission from the county credit line split among the nine commissioners.
This almost seven-figure community chest was apparently the compromise and far-from-petty cash the commissioners have been drawing from after the slush funds known as discretionary spending accounts were eliminated for this budget cycle.
Now, Beck wants the commission to look at splitting off the remaining funds. Maybe we should call that "indiscretionary funds" moving forward?
Heck, maybe the CVB can fund them in coming years.
Just let me know when the announcement is.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343.