TONE DEAF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

There is a popular belief that the closer a government exists in geographic proximity to the people it serves, the more responsive and open-eared it will be to those constituents.

The logic guiding this line of thinking is that since nearby representatives spend more time among those who elect them, the former will be more prone to meaningfully engage with the latter.

But if you’ve been following headlines of late, you’re likely questioning that assumption.

Sunday’s Times Free Press was especially disheartening if you’re a believer in the engageability of local government.

Columnist David Cook started off the print edition with a depressing opinion piece detailing the sewer bill woes plaguing thousands of Chattanooga residents. According to Cook, the city is owed millions of dollars in overdue charges thanks, in some degree, to a not-too-long ago bungle between the city and an outsourced California collections agency.

Since the city reclaimed those bill collecting duties, they’ve taken a more hardline approach with debtors that, yes, includes hundreds of water service terminations. Many of the disconnections affect our area’s most financially vulnerable.

So Cook, a man of compassion if there ever was one, reached out to Mayor Andy Berke to see if Berke might be able to reconcile the city’s heavy-handed treatment of residents to the mayor’s self-proclaimed anti-poverty ethos.

It took two weeks for a response, and all Cook got in return from Berke’s spokeswoman was an acknowledgement that 431 disconnections have taken place during the past three months, and a line saying “I don’t have any comment to add from the Mayor.”

No comment?

That gives the impression that unless a podium or news camera is involved, Berke’s concern for those in need is lacking.

Talk about tone deaf. Especially considering it looks like City Hall has been more consumed of late with scoring a temporary staffing contract for former Berke campaigners than it is with everyday locals who’ve fallen behind on their sewer bills. And then there’s the school board. Farther back in Sunday’s paper, Times Free Press Editor Alison Gerber’s column took to task the Hamilton County Board of Education for its continued backroom dealing, as $125 million in HCDE projects was quietly approved without any public review or input.

Only one school board member acknowledged a “very preliminary” plan had been drafted, and new Superintendent Bryan Johnson — who taxpayers recently gifted new funds thanks to increased property taxes — headfaked us all by saying, “there is no official plan.”

Yet, as Gerber wrote, “Presto! By the very next meeting this preliminary plan was suddenly real and quickly got a unanimous vote with no discussion.”

So much for a new age of transparency over on Bonny Oaks.

On a related note, word on the street is that the school district is currently trying to fill its newly vacant public relations gig. I don’t know how successful it will be in finding someone who wants to take bullets for its continued commitment to opacity. Who knows. Maybe there’s a communications pro out there with a thing for self-flagellation.

Even the Hamilton County Commission got in on the action this week, denying Commissioner Tim Boyd’s measure that would have required any property tax increases pass two separate votes to gain approval. Why two votes? For residents to have more time to ask questions and voice opinions — you know, cornerstones of democracy. But no, the commission isn’t into that sort of thing.

We rail constantly against those elected rascals in faraway Washington D.C. “They’re so out of touch,” we cry.

Yet they’re not the only ones. It looks like our local politicians want to give them a run for their money.