This is going to sound like a broken record.
For those of you not familiar with a broken record, vinyl long-playing albums occasionally have defects in the grooves that cause the music to get stuck. Basically, the music repeats over and over until the needle gets a gentle nudge to move it along.
So if something sounds like a broken record, you have heard it over and over again.
Through the years, The Hub has often expressed amazement that people don't really take advantage of opportunities to influence lawmakers at public meetings called for just that purpose. The editorials are like broken records, and here is another one.
Leading up to the approval of its 2021 budgets on Dec. 14, Hay River town council held two public meetings – one on its operations and maintenance (O&M) budget and the other on its capital budget.
No members of the public – save for a reporter for The Hub – showed up at either meeting.
How should that be interpreted, especially by members of town council?
Do community residents not care how their taxes are being spent or how much extra they will have to pay in property taxes or fees?
Do they not think that anything they might say at a public meeting would create any meaningful change?
Do they trust council so much that they are willing to let it make the decisions without any further community involvement?
Are community residents simply not interested in town affairs?
To be honest, no one can probably say what is really happening when public meetings don't have the public. It is no doubt a combination of various factors.
Some members of town council, chatting as they waited for community residents to show up at the recent public meetings, noted that people talk to them at other times and in other places, and speculated that some might be reluctant to attend meetings because of Covid-19.
That might be factors, but who knows?
It might be as logical to speculate that there is something really interesting on TV, or that it is too cold outside.
But there is one thing for sure. Community residents often complain to politicians – municipal, territorial and federal – that they are not being listened to and there is not enough transparency in government.
That is said at the meetings that might actually attract a crowd – usually all-candidates' forums in advance of elections or a meeting for an issue that captures people's attention. A couple of years ago, the proposed legalization of cannabis was one of those issues.
However, most times people do not appear to be interested in government, even when they could make a case to save themselves some money.
Their complaints that government should listen to the people or that there is not enough transparency are somewhat hollow.
It seems that many people just want to register those complaints, but don't want to actually do anything to be heard by their political leaders or to ensure transparency in government.
Politicians and government agencies – even though they spend time and money on public meetings – must think that most people really don't care what they do.
That is a little disheartening.