“The invisible government,” wrote Walter Lippman, “is malign.” “What is dangerous about it is that we do not see it, cannot use it, and are compelled to submit to it.” Walter Lippman, A Preface to Politics (1914). That critique of invisible government underlies Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act, a series of statutes enacted “to encourage and facilitate an informed citizenry’s understanding of the governmental processes and governmental problems.”
Twenty years ago a young couple bought some land out in the country, in another state from where they lived and worked. They bought the land with the intention of building their retirement home. Every year they visited the property and year after year they got closer to building their dream home. They kept in touch with their neighbors, so they felt like they knew what was going on in the town. One fall they drove to their property and saw lots of houses in the neighborhood for sale. Turning onto their own tract of land, they saw that the creek that ran through it was dry -- in twenty years it had never been dry, even during periods of drought! They visited the neighbors and were told that the area's water table had been drained by the nearby city exercising a right to drill wells to bring water to the growing town. According to the neighbors, the city had exercised this right without any notice to the residents. The couple visited the local City Hall and discovered that the City had in fact placed a small notice in the local newspaper, in three successive issues as required by law, that there would be a public meeting about the impending drilling. The City published two additional notices after the public meeting to notify the public that there had been no opposition to the drilling, so the City was going to go forward with the drilling. It wasn't very long before the neighborhood residents discovered that those new City wells affected their homesite wells. The water table was so decimated by the City wells that the homesite wells, some of which had been there for many years, were no longer deep enough to serve the homesites. The neighborhood residents were going to have to either drill new wells on their property or haul in water, both at a significant cost to the property owners. To add insult to injury, a group of residents went to a City council meeting to complain of their plight and discovered that the City had "followed the letter of the law" in posting notices in the local newspaper. There was nothing that could be done, and the City was not responsible for the impact of the new wells on the property owners outside the City. The residents were told "you should have come to the public meetings to speak up." More than twenty homes went on the market for sale that year. Some sold for very low prices, because land without water wasn't worth much. Some property owners didn't want to sell at the low property values and had to incur the additional cost of hauling in water in tanks.
City council meetings are open to the public. These meetings are held for YOUR benefit. Attend them if you can--you never know how action taken by City Council will affect you personally unless you ask questions!
Tonight's agenda includes proclaiming September 28, 2013 as National Public Lands Day. Does anyone know what this means or where it is coming from? How does such a proclamation affect Watonga? You can find out at the meeting this evening.
The council will also consider the Police Committee’s recommendation to hire a new Police Officer but the agenda does not indicate who they are considering. The Police Committee met a couple of weeks ago and discussed David Robertson. The council will also consider approval of a new volunteer firefighter, Kade Griffin.
The Street Department, Light & Water Department and Park Department have scrap metal, old signs, old playground equipment, old manhole lids, and many old pieces of junk metal they want to declare as surplus and sell. There may be some treasures here!
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