Do you attend the meetings of the county council or county commissioners? How about the town or city council? I won't ask about the school as I would have, most likely, seen you there.

How about the cracker barrels, held with our state representation by the Farm Bureau?

I missed the last one.

Now, the point of these questions is that our system of government allows the public to attend and, in most cases, voice their opinion. However, to do so effectively takes more time than just sitting through a meeting of any one of these bodies.

To know what is going on, you generally need to know what is on the agenda before hand and do a little bit of research.

Most of us do not have the time to attend every meeting. I know that I don't. I attend the meetings of the school board on a somewhat regular basis, but I don't attend the others. I do "track" what is going on through The Brazil Times (If I hear that someone wants to put gold leaf on Brazil's water tower, I'll definitely be at the meeting ... LOL).

For the most of these official meetings, they have an attendance record that rivals the football games played by the Clay City Eels. (For those of you that don't know, Clay City High School doesn't have a football team!).

It's not that the public isn't informed or welcome to attend. The public just doesn't show up unless there is money involved or a personnel issue such as the recent support for the principals. Unless there is some kind of controversy, the business of government is rather boring, no matter how necessary it is. If you don't believe that, well, Spring is coming. Take a couple of hours on a sunny day and watch an hour of C-span, then sit outside and watch your grass grow. Let me know which you enjoy the most. Most of the time, I would rather watch the grass grow. LOL, at least the movement of the insects and birds puts some movement in the picture!

As I said, from observing the conduct of business by the school board, I've often wondered why there aren't more questions asked by the board and more debate or discussion of the issues. Often, when a recommendation is made, I sit there waiting for someone to ask, "What are our other options?" Or to suggest another option. I did see that actually happen recently. However, most of the time, it is here is the recommendation, is there a motion, is there a second, how do you vote, the count is (blank) for, (blank) against, (blank) abstain. Next!

There are routine votes such as the consent agenda (minutes of prior meetings) that need no discussion or comment, items that can only be discussed in Executive Session that won't make sense to the public because they cannot be discussed in public but are required by law to be voted upon in public, routine approvals that must be voted on but must occur by law like the publishing of the budget, and many other things that are just necessary to operate. It can be boring, but the public is always welcome. The people that you have elected will enjoy your company. LOL.

The cracker barrels are more entertaining. Issues are discussed in more detail and there is more public participation allowed. But no official business is conducted. These are not "official" meetings, they are basically "informal." Some of you might be asking why our local boards and councils do not have cracker barrels. The reason is that if a quorum of one of these boards or councils attend, the meeting must, by law, become an "official" meeting of that entity and follow the established rules of that entity. We could invite one representative from each of several of these government bodies to a cracker barrel on local issues.

That could be interesting and informative to both the public and our officials.