Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010

Letter to the Editor

Ross is taking away choice

Dear Editor: Last Monday night I attended the Blue Springs City Council meeting to gain more information and express my and my neighbors concern on the city’s desire to take away our individual choices on purchasing our trash services.

I was among the nearly 100 people attending the meeting wanting to express our concerns. I and another person filled out the city’s required form asking to address the mayor and council.

We were all are refused the ability to ask questions or comment in the meeting by the mayor.

At the end of the meeting, I realized I was in good company. Several councilmen during the meeting asked enough probing questions pointing out the flaws of the presentation on mandatory recycling to significantly slow the process down.

Moreover, the mayor decided the citizens would only be allowed to address their concerns with their councilmen outside of the meeting. The mayor continued saying that the councilmen could only forward their questions to him and were forbidden to ask any further questions of the commission. The mayor then would consider the questions himself and forward the questions to the commission.

Mayor Ross, in the decisions he’s made relevant to this issue of taking away citizens choices and adding barriers to communications, has accomplished something significant.

He has awakened a semi-dormant citizenry to the activities, processes and actions of our city’s government. Jack Cook, Blue Springs