A Barking Dog At The City Council Retreat

I have listened to portions of the City Council retreat on YouTube.

The retreat carried a certain tension. The council members discussing Rocky Mount’s financial problems are the same body whose lack of oversight allowed those problems to develop in the first place.

As I listened, an odd literary memory surfaced.

Many people know the title The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the novel by Mark Haddon. What some readers may not remember is that the title itself comes from a Sherlock Holmes story.

In that story, Holmes notices something unusual about a crime that occurred at night.

A watchdog had been present. Yet during the night of the crime, the dog made no sound.

Holmes explains the significance quite simply. The dog did not bark because the intruder was someone the dog knew.

While listening to the retreat discussion, I found myself thinking of the watchdog as a fitting metaphor for the City Council. The watchdog was present while the crimes took place, yet it did not bark.

After the audit disclosures, we are now expected to believe the councilmen know what is right and what should be done.

The image of the watchdog stays with me. Holmes solved his mystery by noticing the silence, but what I was hearing was noise.

Which leaves us with the question, what comes next?

A question that will be difficult to answer by the council named for their lack of oversight. The councilmen have wandered into an expensive antique shop where the policy is simple.