The Board of Supervisors chamber was standing room only when I got there a bit after 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, as the supporters and opposition to the state of Jefferson proposal filled the room along with a few familiar faces in county government, who were there for other business.

After a few minutes the sheriff walked in along with several of his staff members, who were there for the midyear budget review.

I told him that it might be a while before they got around to his agenda item, and he replied that the two sure ways to pack that room were to talk about “weed and Jefferson,” both statements were as accurate as they were obvious.

In spite of the huge crowd, only 30 minutes were alloted to the public's input and the board's discussion and decision on joining the state of Jefferson movement, rather amazing considering the huge step that would be.

Sure enough time slid by far past the scheduled end of the Jefferson debate, and after waiting the better part of an hour the sheriff left to try to salvage some of his morning, though his staff and other department heads remained behind to make sure they didn't miss their agenda item.

I stuck around too, not because of a real interest in the state of Jefferson issue, the reorganization of our watershed-related agencies was my item of the day.

This particular issue was deemed of such insignificance that it was relegated to the untimed agenda, the home of unimportant and noncontroversial business – in theory anyway. The Jefferson issue dragged on for another half hour before a break was needed and the meeting was briefly adjourned.

I used this opportunity to ask Board Chairman Anthony Farrington why the Jefferson issue rated such a short agenda slot and why the watershed agency issue had been banished to the “who knows when we'll talk about that” untimed agenda, and got a rather shocking response.

Mr. Farrington said he was surprised the decision about joining another state would have generated so much public interest, and it didn't matter if the watershed issue was timed or not because you never really know how things will work out time-wise.

As it was the watershed issue was discussed after lunch, long after I had decided to leave, since I had already wasted nearly three hours waiting and still had no idea when it would be addressed.
               
The irony here is that the board voted to join the state of Jefferson in large part because they felt that we had no real voice in Sacramento, yet once again when the chairman of the Board of Supervisors (who is responsible for the agenda) took an issue that he knew people had a keen interest in and would be there to talk about, and made public input on it nearly impossible by making us guess wildly as to when it might be discussed.

I agree that oftentimes we don't have a strong enough voice in Sacramento, but many of us common citizens here feel the same way about our county government as well.

One thing we should all be able to agree on is that wasting large amounts of county staff time due to absurdly unrealistic agenda scheduling is something that is unprofessional and unacceptable, particularly when the person in charge has 15 years of experience on the board.

Another point that needs to be understood is that the time of the unpaid members of the public who care enough about their community to get involved in the democratic process has value too, and when it is wasted in what oftentimes seems to be a deliberate attempt to inhibit that participation that is unacceptable as well.
   
Philip Murphy lives in Finley, Calif.