Political bodies ignore complainers. It’s a fact of life. Members of the ABCAlliance saw that at county commissioner’s court last spring when we begged for a task force (We’re very patient, and are still waiting). Willie Hudspeth made an impassioned plea to rid the downtown square of those confederate fountains. Alliance members applauded when he was finished.
Mr. Hudspeth, so accustomed to being ignored, was stunned by the acknowledgement.
“That’s never happened before,” he said.
Argyle ignored residents and paid the price this spring at the polls. No one at ABCAlliance thinks that’s because they were ignoring complaints about rampant natural gas development and the risk to our children at school. They ignored just about everyone all the time — particularly on things that really mattered, like borrowing money and setting spending and taxing policies.
Bartonville was politically astute enough to see that calling for a moratorium and setting up task force might get them through the election. Then they turned right back around and began “ignoring the complainers.”
Scores of communities are acknowledging what the Denton Record-Chronicle pointed out for us in Citizens of the Shale — there is a high socio-economic cost for giving the energy companies essentially everything they want and not carving out safe and healthy communities.
There is a fine line between getting stuff done and ignoring your constituents.
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St. Thomas called it. Sin by omission.