How can we pursue happiness when we don't even have a job? —Tony Daniels @ LCC 7 November 2011

George Rhynes' video of the last two citizens speaking at the 7 November 2011 County Commission meeting has interesting closeups on the county staff while the Chairman was answering Matt Portwood. Then at 1:35 Tony Daniels answered the request for "any other business" by walking up to the podium and talking.

He cited life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence:

How can we pursue happiness when we don't even have a job? I believe the city and county and Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce need to work more together to create an atmosphere of trying to bring more industry inside the city. We have highways coming through Valdosta. I hope to see in the near future that the county and the city and the Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce work like brothers and sisters. Because you know and I know that you are elected by the people of the people and for the people, and I'd like to see that.... Because we need more entrepeneurs, we need to see all governments in this area promote that....

I suspect the Chairman was asking the Commissioners whether they had any other business, but he wasn't clear about that. I think what Tony Daniels had to say was important, and citizens should be able to say they have other business. However, since he had not signed up to speak before the meeting started, he was in violation of Rule #1 from the Commission's hastilly adopted Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard::

1. Persons wishing to speak at “Citizens Wishing to be Heard” shall sign in with the Clerk of the Board of Commissioners. The Clerk shall be available for this purpose at least 10 minutes before the scheduled time at which the meeting will begin. Each person signing in shall provide his or her name, his or her mailing address, his or her daytime telephone number, whether he or she is a resident of the County, whether he or she is a taxpayer of the County, the subject on which he or she wishes to speak, and the action requested of the Board of Commissioners, if any. The Clerk shall prepare and have available a form for the purpose of persons signing in to speak.

Neither the Chairman nor any Commissioner made any objection to that violation of their own rules.

Of course, by now, no one should be surprised to discover yet another way in which those rules are merely guidelines completely at the discretion of the Chairman. Which makes me wonder why they have them at all....

Here's the video:

How can we pursue happiness when we don't even have a job? —Tony Daniels @ LCC 7 November 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 November 2011.
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I., the bostongbr on YouTube.

-jsq