Monday, April 8, 2013

A look at commission attendance

Awhile back I wrote a story about Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett's meeting-phobia.

Figured I should now probably look into whether the commissioners bothered to attend their meetings, particularly after the recent chatter about one commish who's been seen off and on.

Soooooo . . . . click right smack here for beer board, work session and voting meeting coverage, from January 2012 through February of this year.

Or the CliffNotes:
  • Beer Board: Does anyone really care? Heh. Well, I guess Mike Hammond and R. Larry Smith do. They didn't miss a beat. Mike Brown, Sam McKenzie, Jeff Ownby and Dave Wright each missed once. Brad Anders and Ed Shouse missed twice. Richard Briggs and Tony Norman missed thrice, and Amy Broyles missed five.
  • Work sessions: It looks like Brad Anders, R. Larry Smith and Jeff Ownby get an A plus for attendance here. Mike Hammond, Dave Wright, Tony Norman and Mike Brown each missed a meeting. (Note that that neither Norman nor Hammond were serving as chair of the board when absent.) Richard “Doctor and warrior” Briggs missed twice, Ed Shouse four times and Amy Broyles was MIA for five of 'em, including June, July and August.
  • Voting meetings: Five members had perfect attendance: R. Larry Smith, Ed Shouse, Mike Hammond, Dave Wright and Mike Brown. Sam McKenzie, Richard Briggs and Jeff Ownby missed one each, and Brad Anders, Tony Norman (including once when he served as chairman) and Amy Broyles each missed two.
I'm not sure if this really means anything as I'm not going to bother looking up what was on the agenda or what as in the news during the time each person skipped out. (And you're complaints about it aren't registering with me.) Personally, I think you should have a pretty good excuse to miss a voting meeting. I mean at least show up for those.

And I know that some officials get pretty upset when commissioners miss work sessions, if only because they're the ones who end up asking a million questions during the regular meeting.

Anyhoo, there you are.

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