I thought I’d tune in to the Monday night Bozeman City Commission Meeting on Channel 190 on my Spectrum Cable dial.

As a sports fan I find I often want to throw things at the TV when my team is performing below their potential.

I get the same urges watching our city leaders as they knit pick their way through their elected duties. In this case the dreaded Bozeman Strategic Plan.

Words Have Meaning

“Can we change the wording in 6-B to be such and such?” This was the point my sandwich lost its taste. And got the overwhelming desire to launch the nearest, heavy, inanimate, object at the offending commissioner’s face that was filling the screen.

Will changing this one word really make the entire document more forceful or compelling to the residents of Bozeman who will never take one second of their time to read it?

Somehow, I think not.

This is why governments fail the people. No wonder bills before congress are several thousand pages. The sheer minutiae of detail on steroids slows the process to a crawl.

This single word change required a motion, a second and a good 15 minutes of discussion as to how this single thought might not convey the true meaning of the strategic plan.

Thankfully, in the end, cooler heads prevailed, and the original language was retained, and everyone felt better for the clarification after the five points of view were expressed.

I sincerely hope that political correctness was not infringed or the whole plan might have to be scrapped.

The writing of the US Constitution didn’t take this long.

At Last We Have A Plan

At long last a plan was voted on and approved. I guess the language will have to do.

One big problem is the city is starting to get so big it can’t get out of its own way. The big issue seems to be the lack of prioritization of the city agencies.

The tree guys take care of trees and the street guys take care of streets then this plan is looking to dump more things on their desks.

What will take top priority and who’ll make that decision might be missing from the plan.

Some Final Thoughts

The plan will be signed, copies printed, put is a drawer somewhere and probably be forgotten. Politically correct wording or not.

In future meetings it will be referred to in general terms that fit whatever narrative is before the commission.

For the most part it will probably be ignored. When something is done right the plan will be acknowledged.

I can’t wait for the wording of the next documents the commission takes on. I doubt Shakespeare has any real worry but the commissioners seem to be rewriting War and Peace. I hope my street gets cleaned.

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