The Incredibully* Agony of Meetings

I hate meetings. Who doesn't? Nothing seems to get done in meetings. I belong to the local chamber of commerce, but I'd rather poke my eyes out than attend one of the meetings. Nothing gets done, and it feels like a waste of my time.

I attended my first Borough council meeting tonight. I've lived in Wellsboro most of my life, not all, because I'm not dead yet, though I had to check my pulse at the meeting just to be sure. The only thing I really feel I accomplished was I made up a new word to describe the political meeting experience, incredibully. I feel it's apropos, and I'll be using it again.

The reason I decided to abject myself to this scheduled snoozefest is my concern over what I think may be fire code violations in a local Wellsboro business. Wellsboro is a small town. After asking around, I found out we don't have a fire marshall. Our fire department is all volunteer, and even the fire chief holds a regular job where he works at least 40 hours a week.

We do, however, have a borough manager. It seemed the logical place to inquire, and I sent both an email and a letter, but the wheels of bureaucracy grind slow. I didn't receive any acknowledgement and felt it was best to attend the meeting to see if the borough manager had received my concerns.

Nothing got done. Nothing is resolved. I received the curt answer of "checking into it" and "right to know" and of course no one at borough council seemed to know where to start looking. One member seemed to think the fire chief would know. Of course, our local fire department is all volunteer, and there's a lot to know with more to learn all the time.

The internet can be a useful tool, and by digging around I found out some good information on how fire marshalls calculate maximum occupancy for public buildings. You can check out the page I found here.

Every municipality does it a little different, and reading a few pages on the internet is not going to make anyone a fire marshall, but I can't help but come to the conclusion that there is at least one violation of the fire code in this local business.

I hate meetings, but I might have to start going to a few more. A lot of the same people have been on the Wellsboro Borough Council, the Tioga County of Commissioners, and the Wellsboro School Board, because people hate meetings.

Most people never go to one until it's time to complain, or it's time to see if you can get an evasive answer in person. It feels like a waste of time, but sometimes, just sometimes something really useful happens, like the creation of a new word, or maybe making Wellsboro a little safer for everyone in the future...



Main Street Wellsboro...things move a little slower here...

*Incredibully: Boring with bullshit-a descriptor for political meetings. I think of it more as boring with a side of bullshit, because that seems to go with almost any political meeting from small town to Congress.