Well, Thursday night came and went. Basically, in my eyes, the entire budget process that the Commission I sit on worked on for almost 4 hours was a total waste of time. Yes, every department except 1 had a representative there to explain and justify their budget requuests, but some of the people the departments sent had no idea why they were there and had no clue what a line item buget is. To make matters worse, we did not even have enough Commission members there, according to our Bylaws, to hold an official meeting. How embarassing is that? To me, pretty damn!!

To be able to hold the meeting, the roll-call was read and not enough people responded. A motion was made from the floor to disregard the bylaws for this meeting and hold the meeting with the Commissioners that were present. While I think this was a piss poor way of doing business and makes the Commission look terribly bad, the motion passed and the meeting was held. How can you expect the 5 volunteer fire and rescue departments that this Commission represents to the Board of Supervisors to gain any respect in their eyes when you can not even get enough Commission members to show up and participate in this important process. Each Commissioner volunteered to be on this Committee. they had to fill out an application and turn it into their respective Board of Supervisor member for appointment. If you don't want to be on this Committee, resign and we will find someone who wants to be on it and will actually show up to the meetings. I guess that is too easy. If someone out there can help me understand, please feel free to contact me and fill me in because I would love to know the answer.

That is my soapbox for tonight. I will write more in the next few days on the actual budget presentations and everyone should find them interesting to say the least.

Until then.......