The first public input session is tonight at Halls High School from 7 pm to 9 pm. You can attend any of the five meetings to make your voice heard.

In spite of what some are saying, these meetings do not have a predetermined outcome. Knox County - One Question is a result of the decision affirming that we have a home rule charter. The public comments and Baker Center Study will be reported to the public in late August. If citizens want to use that information to make changes in county government, the current charter provides a mechanism to do just that. We don't need a new charter to change the form of government.

Some current public officials, who are not involved with the 'One Question' steering committee, have proposed looking at metro or unified government. They want to throw out the current city and county charters and replace them with one new charter. Will a metro charter include term limits and a mechanism for citizens to make charter amendments? The current charter does.

Pundits, politicians, political junkies and bloggers who say this is just another metro group are either uninformed, unimaginative or deliberately trying to mislead the public. Maybe they can only imagine the current form of government or metro. I say let's listen to the ideas citizens have and look at what some other communities are doing and then decide if we can use our home rule charter to make government work better for the voters and taxpayers. If all you can imagine is the current model or metro, maybe you should come and be enlightened by your neighbors.