Wednesday morning I read the editorial (Herald, July 15) regarding Sheriff Sean Smith’s public meeting at 2 p.m. Thursday. The editorial urged all to attend.
I would love to have gone, but this meeting, like so many others held by local elected boards and commissions, was held during working hours. I seem to see notices of quite a few meetings being held from 4 to 6 p.m., or thereabouts, purporting to solicit public input. I work during the day and can’t attend.
Now, if they were held at 7 p.m., I think more and varied public input might be obtained. I get off work at 5:30, drive 15 to 20 minutes into town from my workplace out by the hospital, and if a meeting is over at 6 p.m., I would get there just in time to help roll up posters and fold up easels. It would seem to me that midday public meetings will attract the same crowd of retired people or business owners who can take off from their workplace for a couple of hours, getting input from the same group of people, and cutting out input from a diverse group of locals, who, like me, have to work for a living during the day.
If boards and commissions, elected to serve the community, really want to serve the community, they should hold meetings when a larger number of community members can attend.
Larry E. Whiteside
Durango
