Politics

Twitter alert: Wyatt to tweet the news

Henderson County Manager Steve Waytt enjoys explaining local government to visitors from Russia in September 2014.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 6, 2015

Anyone who can't get enough of the wit and wisdom of Steve Wyatt — and let's be honest, who can? — is in luck.

The Henderson County manager has joined Twitter.

OK, maybe Wyatt is not the Louis CK of the local government world. He's as likely to drone on about strategic budgeting as he is to crack wise about eating at McDonald's or changing diapers. But he does have his moments.

Why, just the other night the manager popped off a good one. After Wyatt pointed out that Henderson County commissioners have a history of scheduling their annual all-day budget workshop on a snow day, board Chairman Tommy Thompson said it's good that it works that way. "We ought to make sure public works can get us here," said the chair. "None of the department heads can get here and we just go on and deal with it."

"It's been my experience," Wyatt volleyed, "you've pretty much done that anyway — regardless of my influence or what they say."

Not the Comedy Central stuff of Tosh.O maybe. But in the prosaic precincts of county government, it passed for a moment of standup.

On Sunday, Wyatt had issued nine tweets and was up to 16 followers. (By way of comparison, President Obama has 52,850,747 and Taylor Swift has 50,317,974.) Through tweets, the manager has alerted his audience to the swearing-in of District Attorney Greg Newman and warned about "the first real cold temps on the way."

So watch for Wyatt, or his ghost tweeter, to continue to tweet about the county. His handle is (the very imaginative) @HCNCManager. Through his tweets, he "will be bringing the latest county government updates directly from his office to the citizens of Henderson County."

Come to think of it, maybe this will be a good change. If the administrators, county commissioners and department heads were limited to Twitter's 140-character limit, that all-day budget workshop could be trimmed to 20 minutes!