viernes, 30 de enero de 2009

"a year to get put on the notification list"

Ramona Reece commented at the last Commission meeting (17 January 2009 - Memphis) that "It took me over a year to get put on the notification list."

in the 1990s the Commission had an office in a state-owned building in downtown Nashville, a salaried executive director, a photocopier, a paper-envelope-USPSmail notification list, and a several thousand-dollar budget for items like paper, envelopes and stamps. they mailed meeting notices to organizations, not individuals.

in the 2000s the Commission has no budget. it has no office. no executive director. no photocopier. no paper. no envelopes. no stamps. anything and everything it has exists in cyberspace. since the Commission was refounded no Commission secretary sent out meeting notices by mail or email. all notices were provided on the Commission website and folks spread the word around by email. actual agendas with an accurate description of the peoposals to be discussed were unheard of. a Commission-directed email list was discussed in 2008, but no such capability was offered by the state.

in december 2008 the secretary of the Commission took it upon himself to create his own - not the Commission's - email notification list of Commission meetings.

Ms Reece's public comment that "It took me over a year to get put on the notification list" is not a complaint about the Commission's meeting notice not being available publicly online along with other state 'sunshine' notices but a whine that Ms Reece was not being properly serviced with direct email by the Commission. advance meeting notice can be and is distributed publicly and freely by any number of private service providers. Mr kunesh, acting without Commission authorization, took it upon himself to create an email notification list which includes Commission meetings.
personal interest in the Commission meets personal responsibility at www.state.tn.us/environment/tcia/ and www.state.tn.us/environment/news/ppo/sunshine.shtml#tcia. public notice can be automated by Google Alerts which alert subscribers by email to new information on the web (www.google.com/alerts). that any person feels entitled to personalized notification when s/he could be doing it him/herself and making a contribution to an unfunded state agency is a comment on the entitlement beliefs of a spoiled generation.

when form matters more than substance, when mode of communication is more important than content, when being catered to matters more than community service, substance and content become superfluous.
when substance and content become superfluous, so does the agency that is dedicated to their form and mode of communication.