01/29/2007: ""Good Ol' Boy" Government, Or Charter Government?"

The full six member County Council is at work on one of the same questions that would not go away after the three member County Commissioners became County Councilmen under the Charter: To wit: "Who's in charge here"?

Even before the Charter was passed, Lichter, Myhr and Ranker, sitting as commissioners, made it clear they did not take kindly to a county administrator form of government, but have repeatedly stated they would work to make the transition as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

At a Tuesday council meeting this week, one part of the transition debated at various times throughout the day, was the role of the concept of council liaison assignments, and are they appropriate under the Charter; and to what extent it was appropriate under a county administrator form of government to have individual council members representing the Council to various department heads.

Councilman Lichter gave examples of how important it is for individual council members to interact with the departments, so that when they are performing their charter assigned role of policy makers, they have input from various departments, as a result of the liaison assignments to departments.

Councilman Rosenfeld responded to Lichter's concerns by telling him "you can still do that (have conversations)", but pointed out to Lichter he would no longer be representing the whole council when he had contacts with the departments.

Councilman Gene Knapp, a former Freeholder, told the Council that when the voters "overwhelmingly approved the Charter" they were stating they wanted to "get rid of the ‘Good ol' Boy" form of government. He reminded them that under the Charter their role now is "legislate, and let the professional administrator run the day-to-day operations" of County government. The voters spoke loud and clear, he said, and "liaisons" are "good ol' boy" government. He added that it was not necessary to get rid of all of the liaison assignments, but they should remove most of them.

Councilman Myhr is the newly elected chairman of the Council, and he attempted to have the Council work through a staff report from County Administrator Pete Rose that set out the issues, and made recommendations for action. After much discussion, it was agreed that the individual council members would work to determine what departments, and/or groups, should continue to have liaison assignments -beyond those that are required by law to have elected officials assigned to them- and then the topic would be taken up again at a later meeting.