Safeguarding Clean Water
This natural resource is essential for drinking, farming, and daily life.
What is water?
These areas are often protected because they provide food, job, and open space.
What is farmland?
This Tennessee law requires most government meetings to be open to the pubic.
What is the Tennessee Open Meetings Act (Sunshine Law)?
Growth should benefit not only future residents but also these people who already call Washington County home.
Who are current residents and taxpayers?
These individuals are elected to represent citizens and make county decisions.
Who are County Commissioners?
Rainwater that flows across land and can carry pollutants into creeks, streams, and rivers is called this.
What is stormwater runoff?
Unplanned development that spreads into rural areas is often called this.
What is urban sprawl?
Citizens use this process to request access to government records.
What is a public or open records request?
Responsible growth requires local leaders to ask whether development will pay its fair share for this.
What is infrastructure and public services?
Accountability means elected officials should be able to explain and justify these.
What are their decisions and votes?
Forests and wetlands help protect water quality by doing this.
What is filtering pollutants?
Counties use these regulations to determine how land may be used.
What is zoning?
Posting meaningful agendas before meetings helps residents do this.
What is stay informed about upcoming decisions?
This planning tool helps determine where residential, commercial, and industrial development should occur.
What is zoning?
Citizens exercise accountability every election by doing this.
What is voting?
Contamination of groundwater can affect these common sources of rural drinking water.
What are wells?
Preserving rural character often helps maintain these scenic and economic assets.
What are farms and open spaces?
This document shows how taxpayer dollars are planned to be spent.
What is the county budgt?
Growth decisions should consider impacts on traffic, schools, emergency services, water resources, and this important community characteristic.
What is quality of life?
Public comment periods give residents an opportunity to do this.
What is speak directly to their government?
Protecting creeks, streams, rivers, and aquifers today helps ensure this for future generations.
What is a sustainable water supply?
Smart growth seeks to balance development with protection of these community resources.
What are natural resources and rural landscapes?
Government transparency helps build this essential ingredient between citizens and elected officials.
What is public trust?
The goal of smart, responsible growth is not to stop development but to ensure it is this.
What is sustainable and well-planned?
When officials disclose potential conflicts before voting, they are demonstrating this principle.
What is ethical governance?