EDITOR:
How does a citizen of Platte City get their questions answered?
I attend committee meetings. I attend board of aldermen meetings. I sacrifice dinners, sports practices, and bedtime stories with my children to be present and engaged. I study the issues. I ask questions. Yet time and again, I am met with silence.
At the recent public works workshop, I asked the mayor point blank: How do I get my questions answered? His response? “Schedule a meeting.” That was my breaking point. Tears filled my eyes—not out of weakness, but from the exhaustion of asking questions that never receive answers. How much more time must a citizen give before their elected officials will do the job they were chosen to do: answer to the people?
The message seems clear: they don’t actually want citizen input. The “opportunity” to comment at meetings is nothing more than theater—a facade staged to convince us we have a voice. In reality, it is a ruse. A government that ignores questions is a government that fears accountability.
Platte City residents deserve transparency. We deserve leaders who respect the sacrifices we make to show up. We deserve answers, not excuses. Anything less is not democracy—it’s dismissal.
--Amber Brune
Platte City