Board of Supervisors' Meetings

This morning, 3 Jan 2012, was the first meeting of the new Board of Supervisors. Thanks go the Beat 4 Supervisor, Sonny Nickson, for bringing up the subject of moving Board of Supervisors’ Meetings to evening hours.

What was finally agreed upon was this: Starting in Feb 2012, the first meeting will be at 9a on the first Monday of the month. The middle meeting and the end of the month meeting will be held at 5p.

This is why I think the decision that was made this morning was not a good and transparent decision for the residents of Tunica County.

1. The first meeting of the month contains all of the department reports and the paying of the claims. The middle and the end of the month meetings usually have much smaller agendas and usually are not all that interesting.

2. When residents begin to realize there is not that much on the middle and end of the month agendas, they might lose interest and stop attending. It sure would be a shame to let our newly found citizen participation start to wane.

This is why I think it would be a good thing for Tunica County to hold all Board of Supervisors’ Meetings at 5:30p:

1. Tunicans would get to hear what is going on in their government through reports from department heads.

2. Tunicans would get to hear the reading of the claims and know where their government is spending county funds.

3. Additionally, by holding Board of Supervisors’ Meetings at 5:30p, we could meet in the courtroom and everyone would get to have a seat. The courtroom also has a speaker system so we could hear what was being said. These are problems that now exist in the current Board Room...not enough room and we can't hear.

4. If by chance the courtroom had been in use during the day of a Supervisors' Meeting, the courtroom would be cleared out and we could move in at 5:30p for our meeting.

Supervisors, please bring this up for further discussion. At various county meetings, you have been able to observe that Tunica County residents are interested in what is going on. Please make your meetings and yourselves available to your constituents.