A reader recently sent me a story from the Brownsburg Sentinel that illustrates the importance of local media–and at the same time, suggests its limitations in an age where so many of us have lost the very concept of community and citizenship . Evidently, Americans are fixated on national news and/or America’s vicious culture wars, or–in the alternative–are unconcerned about their local governments, or are amusing themselves on social media…
The Sentinel covered two consecutive meetings of the Brownsburg Town Council, the second of which included the Council’s dissolution of the Brownsburg Park Board–a board that had served the residents of Brownsburg since 1959.
Prior to the first of those two meetings, the Council had published an agenda including the dissolution item; the day before the meeting, it eliminated that item from the agenda.
Town Council President Travis Tschaenn also refused questions from a resident on the ownership and modification of the council agenda. He had the resident escorted away from lectern and temporarily removed from the venue by a Brownsburg Police officer.
According to the Sentinel, the Parks board was informed of the impending dissolution late on the Friday prior to the Council meeting. The Sentinel also reported that approximately $368,000 in grant funding, intended for the construction of a local Park, would be jeopardized should the park board be dissolved.
The newspaper also reported on a lack of any evidence that Travis Tschaenn or anyone on the Council had conducted an investigation into the short and long term financial impact of such a dissolution, and that Tschaenn has refused to respond to multiple inquires or to otherwise explain his conduct in this matter.
In the second of the two Council meetings, with virtually no discussion or fanfare, the Brownsburg Parks Board was dissolved.
Because the story at the link was formatted differently than most online newspapers (it included a number of videos posted to You Tube), I was curious to learn more about the Sentinel. An email exchange with the editor/publisher led to a lunch and fascinating conversation.
It turns out that the Sentinel began publication a couple of years after another local newspaper was discontinued (the publisher of that weekly newspaper died.) It is essentially the “hobby” of its current editor/publisher, David Weyant, and reaches several thousand of the some 50,000 residents in and around Brownsburg.
Weyant said he could only speculate about the motivation for eliminating the local Parks Board. (The “official” reason–too much unnecessary bureaucracy–didn’t pass the smell test.) An Indianapolis development company is said to have its eye on a well-located parcel currently being used as a park…but there is no confirmatory evidence of that theory.
What isn’t speculative was the lack of public participation in the process, despite the coverage provided by the Sentinel.
Weyant told me that some ten years ago, during a fight over proposed annexation, hundreds of local residents had appeared and participated at public hearings. By the time the Council turned its attention to the Parks Board, most members of the community had stopped showing interest in the only ways that matter–appearing and speaking at public meetings and/or communicating directly with the officials entitled to vote on an issue.
Only three members of the public appeared at the Council meeting at which the Parks Board was dissolved.
Weyant shook his head, opining that local residents seemed to think they were exercising their civic responsibilities by venting on social media. Ten years ago, he noted, social media was barely a thing–just beginning to emerge.
Needless to say, a diatribe delivered on Facebook or WhatsApp is equivalent to spitting in the wind; it certainly doesn’t constitute civic engagement and absent an avalanche of anger that prompts actual engagement, it is extremely unlikely to change the minds or behaviors of public officials.
I would have expected more government/citizen interaction in a small community where people know each other and are likely to know their elected officials personally, especially because the community does have a local newspaper, however limited its reach.
Obviously, I was wrong–the information conveyed by a local newspaper is necessary, but evidently not sufficient.
It will be interesting–and probably depressing–to see what the Brownsburg City Council does with the land and funding sources it now directly controls without the “hassle” of an intervening source of checks and balances.
If it turns out that local folks don’t like those subsequent actions, maybe they can blame their diminishing exercise of democratic civic engagement on social media.
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