National Common Sense Week

For those of you wondering about my vote against our National Education Week proclamation at the last board meeting, I present this alternate proclamation.   So far I'm the only one to sign, but perhaps you can convince other elected officials to join me. 

Whereas: Public meetings which are accessible to all, achieve clear outcomes, and are conducted efficiently, are a cornerstone of our Republic, and

Whereas: It is the responsibility of elected officials to keep these meetings focused on topics which related to concrete actions by the board or its employees, and

Whereas: Actions that are purely symbolic, not affecting any policy or regulation, and not causing any actual activity, are a waste of public time and energy, and a cynical effort by politicians to say they "did something" while doing nothing, and

Whereas: "Proclamations" passed by elected bodies are in this purely symbolic category (with the exception of the one you are reading now), and

Whereas: Support of the causes described in proclamations, such as supporting Education, Teachers, Classified Employees, School Boards, etc., should be demonstrated by the continuous activities and policies of the board, rather than by empty rhetoric, and

Whereas: While the public resources wasted by any individual proclamation activity seem trivial, collectively they amount to thousands (or more) of employee hours and millions of dollars in expenses across the nation,

Now, therefore, be it resolved that this week, and all future weeks, shall be known as National Common Sense Week. All elected officials signing on to this proclamation pledge that this will be the last Proclamation of a Week that they ever vote on or spend time on in a public meeting.

Signed,

Erik Seligman