Tonight the Smyrna Town council will meet for the first time since the interviews last week. Unlike the interviews, the meeting tonight will be broadcast for your viewing enjoyment and we might have a new Town Manager by the end.
My column for this week will be in the Smyrna AM, and I address the town’s seemingly inability to understand the position they’re in and how to deal with it. The problem is that the interviews,
held last week, were recorded according to the person in charge of media for Smyrna, but was not shown on Channel 3 cable or online, nor will it be put online for you and I to view.
Thanks Smyrna!
Now you could have gone and seen it, at 9am, and lose some time and pay from work, or we can purchase the video on DVD,s, but you have to pick it up during regular business hours as they do not mail them, so more time lost.
Right when they need to be as open as humanly possible, they step back and make it difficult to watch the process. I’m not a very smooth talker in life, so I have to edit myself in my newspaper columns, but I don’t need to online.
A lot of questions arise. What did we miss? Was this a love fest for Henry Gill Jr.? Were the questions balanced? What about things as subtle as body language?It is kind of damn hard to know because the video is not easily available. Color me unimpressed.
The town of Smyrna has stumbled over and over this year, from Gatlinburg, to the tax increase that was excessive, to the way Mark O’Neal was handled…and now this.
I have not heard the phrase ‘throw the bums out’ or versions of it more than this year and people are most definitely meaning it. To be honest turnovers on the council have mostly been due to resignations. In the last 8-9 years only one person was voted out. Next year might be a very different ballgame for the incumbents.
Tonight the Town Council meeting is scheduled, and I recommend to all you watch it because near the end of the posted agenda this one line item might seem small, but it is very large for our future.
h. Consideration of Town Manager appointment.
6pm tonight on Channel 3 online or on your cable TV.