Silence is Not Golden

I’m totally amazed at the inner workings of the county government, especially the county commissioners. In the normal process of running a government, the commissioners had a ‘public hearing’ on the provisional budget. The announcement in the paper said that anyone could be heard and an appropriate response would be given from the commissioners about your concerns.
I went to the budget hearing on the 7th of September and asked why the commissioner’s budget was $209,000.00 and didn’t receive a response. I asked several more questions and was met with the same answer. Total silence. I asked how a budget could be prepared if they didn’t know the expected income for the county the next year. I asked if the budget was increased from last year or was there a budget cut. Then Ross Jordan and Doyle Karpen said that this was an input session only and no response was required. This was my opportunity to ‘suggest’ changes etc for the upcoming year, not for this to be a question and answer period. If I had specific concerns about the budget I could contact the county auditor and she would provide me with answers.
Today was the day to pass the final budget and when I went to the meeting I gave my input during the ‘public input’ session of the meeting and read verbatim the announcement in the paper specifically that a full and complete discussion of all purposes, objectives, items, schedules, appropriations, estimates, amounts and matters set forth and contained in the Provisional Budget. I was met with total silence. So I said I was either being stonewalled, they didn’t understand my questions, or they were lying to me. Again there was total silence. I said that the county auditor was not the person to go to for an answer to these questions. She does not have a vote and that the commissioners and responsible and should answer the questions. Total Silence! I was then thanked by the commissioner and that my time (3 minutes) was up. Still no answers nor and inclination that there would be answers forthcoming. Is this how county government is run? This should really be taken seriously by the people of this county and demand answers, unless of course nobody really cares where their tax dollars are going.