The current conflict within the PTC Council reflects only the differences in personal viewpoints of each member of council, when, in fact, there is a void of citizen input on most issues.

I am sure each council member thinks he or she is voting for the best interests of the city as viewed through their personal perspective. The problem with this type of voting is that the true interests of the city should be determined by the desires of all of the citizens who pay the taxes for the city to function, not just the interest of a few council members and their personal “friends.”

In order to get the true perspective of the best interests of a city, the citizens should be polled. While this might seem a daunting task for a representative at any level, it can certainly be done in today’s electronic world.

While living in Tennessee many years ago, we had a local mayor who won a seat in the federal House of Representatives. Each time a bill came before Congress that affected our district we would receive a letter or postcard asking how we wanted him to vote on the issue(s). He paid for this communiqué out his own pocket. This was true representation and he was re-elected every time he ran.

With citizen-polling, council members would then be voting the desires of their constituencies, and most of the current conflicts within the council would be resolved.

Be reminded that council members are voted in by the citizens; therefore an individual council member’s personal opinion should only count as one perspective when voting on an issue.

This should also alleviate a lot of the current lack of trust, questions of ethics and general dissatisfaction among the populace with the council. How? Because your neighbor might have a perspective that you had not conceived and could give you “another side of the picture.”

In today’s electronic world in a city as small as PTC, perhaps we could have council members that would be willing to compile a list of email addresses and query those constituents as to how they wanted the council member to vote on issues. This would represent the true views of the citizens who were willing to submit their e-mail addresses.

For those citizens who do not take the time to vote in elections, perhaps they could take the time to electronically “vote” on upcoming issues of importance to the city.

Of course, another way for citizens to express their perspective is to learn about the candidates and vote during elections. Voter apathy always leads to what we have in our current representations, whether locally or at the national level; and that is representation of special interest groups who will take the time to vote.

It is time for grassroots voting, folks.

Ron Black

blac622@bellsouth.net

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