By Claudia Riiff Finseth

Apparently, I am not done with the subject of public comments at our Pierce County government’s public meetings.

Blame it on Arlie DeJarnett, my high school civics teacher. Mr. DeJarnett was also a Representative to the Washington State Legislature. He knew his stuff.

Day in and day out, the people we elect to represent us are not listening to us. They are mostly listening to staff and analysts and lobbying groups and corporations and developers.

So when the time comes for them to listen to us, the people they represent, at their meeting that includes public comment, you would think they would sit up and take note. Now they are finally going to hear what their constituents have to say!

Maybe it would be good to take a moment to look up the word ‘constituents.’

The first thing that comes up on google is “constituents are the people politicians have been elected to represent. Elected officials should stay in touch with the needs of their constituents.”

Mmm. Yes, they should.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary adds this to its definition of constituent: ‘an essential part.’ An essential part. Hmmmm.

The way government is practiced in Pierce County, it doesn’t seem that we constituents are an essential part at all. And we are definitely not being kept in touch with overall.

Public comment (ie, constituent comment) only comes at the very end of a governmental meeting. And as the bureaucrats (staffers) always drone on at length, by the time public comments comes along, the council members or commissioners that will be making the decisions, and that represent us, are tired and want to go home. The meeting has gone on too long.

The remedy? The remedy in Pierce County is always to curtail the public comments.

The result is the governmental body only hears some of their constituents who want to speak to them, or their constituents’ time to speak is diminished to hardly any time at all.

Oh, sure, they are invited to send in their comments ahead of time. But who knows what happens to those comments. Do they get to the elected officials we are addressing in a timely manner? And that is not the same as having a chance to speak, for the record, at a public meeting.

Mr. De Jarnett would not approve. He would say the process is catty-wampus.

Now look at it from a constituent’s point of view. They have taken the time to come to this meeting so they can communicate what they want and need to their elected officials, supposedly as an essential part of the process.

When, over and over again, they are denied their 3 minutes, they become resentful. And who can blame them? It looks like their elected officials and appointed commissioners don’t think their input is essential at all. In fact, it’s throw-away. Or, worse yet, it is being deliberately curtailed to limit elected official/constituent communication.

This seems to be what has happened to the governmental process in much of Pierce County. Which means Pierce County is not practicing good democratic (everybody matters equally) governance. It is not following the spirit of the law. It is derelict in duty.

I suggest that, to begin to remedy this, Pierce County Council members regularly have meetings out in their districts to find out just what their constituents—an essential part—are thinking and feeling.