legislating in the twilight zone

I couldn't write about last week until this week because there's been so much to process.  Beginning with a rescheduled Council meeting (WTF!?) and ending the week with the news that our governor and his wife have COVID.  

Yes, a rescheduled Council meeting.  Following 20 minutes of a silent webex meeting, our director came on the line to advise us that the meeting would have to be rescheduled due to a technical error.  Turns out our meeting notice (which, by law, requires 24 hours notice) included the wrong webex link.  (To be honest, it's a miracle that hasn't happened before now.  With so many different links for different audiences in each meeting, what a nightmare!)

Then our meeting was...(this is where I'd like to insert the #SMH emoji).  

The Chair was out of town (on a well-deserved holiday), and our Vice Chair ran her first meeting, and it showed.  On top of the unpracticed chair, we had 440 public comments (which, at 3 minutes a pop, would've made for a really long night).  It took 15 minutes just to sort through all of the motions to limit the comments to two hours.  And that mess set the tone for the whole meeting.

The public comments were a perfect example of the me-me-me centricity of our society today.  "I don't care if there is a global pandemic.  My kids need to be in sports."  "This pandemic is being blown out of proportion.  My kids need to play sports."  "My kid will lose her sports scholarship if she sits out the season."

That last one really gets me.  The first two are so fucking selfish, I just can't.  That latter bit makes me the angriest.  If this is true, and sports scouts aren't finding innovative ways to seek out and reward talent, they are deepening the divide between science, humanity, and the sense that we're in this together.  

And to react, our school districts are moving sports to outer districts with fewer COVID restrictions, and teaching our kids (but only the schools that are predominately white and wealthy (while our schools in lower income school districts don't have this option #systemicracism)) that the rules don't apply to them.

Leading in a crisis is hard for so many reasons, not the least of which being no good answers and a very hazy view of what outcome may be, but because this particular moment is fraught with such divisiveness and viciousness, making decisions at all feels impossible.