Thus the citizen's review panels work seems to have been done in vain. Though I saw some problems with the citizen's review process, I'm a little confused about how the commissioners will be able to achieve a better conclusion if they use the same system the panels used.

Yup. Commission's response to the problems in county government seems to be to try to micro-manage everything. The other day they were looking at nominees to the IDB. Now, I'm all for Commission looking carefully at such appts, and not rubber-stamping them as has been done in the past. OTOH, instead of carefully reviewing the nominees, they decided to have a special meeting where anyone who was interested could come, throw their name in the pot, speak for a few minutes, and answer questions from Commission.

As Sam McKenzie pointed out, they just can't do this with every nominee that comes across their desks (nor can they do it with things like the grant apps).

They need to find a way to provide better oversight - and to perform the duties they already have better - without trying to micromanage the entire county govt.

What makes them think they'll do a better job at awarding grant $$ than the Mayor's administration did?

And when this meeting runs for hours and hours, how much you wanta bet they blame the Sunshine Law?

The whole idea of completely disregarding the recommendations of unpaid citizen volunteers is completely beyond comprehension. The Good Ole Boy system is alive and running rampant in Knox County. County Commission should be ashamed to consider themselves public servants. As in all cases, it is not fair to paint with such a broad brush. Larry Smith and Mike Hammond had pledged to follow the panels recommendations untouched. That is what a public servant is all about. I can not state for a fact that any of the other commissioners have not made the same pledge, but it certainly doesn’t appear so.

If most of think back to our first meeting, it should have been obvious by the presence of the wannabe politicos there who were trying to drag the process out with the minutia that this was a exercise in futility at best. There were several anti-Ragsdale plants in the group and at least one of them was reporting on the proceedings in several blogs on how ridiculous the process was and how we were not giving this process all of the intense scrutiny it needed. If some of you remember those first few meetings, at least one person let It slip that they were in discussions about the process before and during the time we were meeting and how their commissioner was concerned about letting volunteers decide these issues. Yes my friends, we were set up by a few commissioners and their minions into a failed effort.

To the majority of my fellow panel members, it was indeed an honor and privilege to serve with you and think of our time this way, it wasn’t a complete waste because I met and made some good friends out of the process.

Carol,

Where did you find out about this? No one seems able to confirm it, and I can't find it in any papers.

Fix the process for the next time, submit particular inquiries in writing and if you find some terrible conflict of interest, THEN change the allocations. Jeez.

-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B
(link...)