It’s easier to be up-front — By Tommy Purser

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column appeared in the Ledger in January, 2013. Its message remains pertinent today.]
I’m getting burned out. Burned out on breaking in newly elected officials on some of the nuances they need to learn quickly about public service in this rural area I’ve grown to love and call “home.”
I am a big fan of newly elected training programs offered by the Georgia Municipal Association, Association County Commissioners of Georgia, Georgia School Boards Association and other organizations that offer valuable training to elected officials across the state. I truly believe that the training elected officials MUST by law take these days will eventually lead to a better Georgia.
Unfortunately, the training oftentimes produces markedly different results in different officials. The classes, by necessity, are short, to the point and fall far short of the thoroughness required to make the officials significantly better at their public service jobs. Even with all the training, officials must return to their communities and learn by doing.
Don’t get me wrong. The training is far superior to no training at all. But as any professional educator can tell you, a one-fits-all regimen of teaching will not suffice. Not with children and not with adults. Professional educators recognize this and are able to give students one-on-one help to bring success to the challenged and challenge the exceptional. There is no time for that in the 1-, 2-, 3-times a year training for elected officials.
After almost 40 years of covering elected governments and officials in Jeff Davis County, it is burning me out that so many mistakes are so often repeated. Mistakes that many elected officials here make today are strikingly similar to mistakes I’ve seen other elected officials make over the past four decades.
And I’ve become tired of trying to help officials avoid those duplications of mistakes but, more times than not, my efforts go unheeded. They too often look at me as a threat rather than someone trying to help make our community better. They see me as a threat because they “learn” at many of these educational seminars that newspapers are bad. Publicity is bad. That while the public has a right to know how these elected officials are conducting their business, it’s best that the public not be informed. Too often they meet behind closed doors and do important work at called meetings out of the public’s eye.
And then they wonder why so many of their decisions are second-guessed. Why so many people don’t understand what they’re doing and why they are doing it. I just wish they’d try being up front with the public they serve. They might just find it’s easier that way. But what do I know? I’m the bad guy.