Attitude Adjustment

So how are they doing? Its now some four months since the election and two months since the new County Council sat together for the first time in early January. Time for an interim assessment.

Old terminologies are steadily disappearing. "BOCC" is now rarely heard (despite a brief but unsuccessful attempt to retain it in the form of a "Board of County Council members"). While common sense won the day there, this simple semantic blip on the transition screen was emblematic of a wishful scenario in which the ex-commissioners could wake up from the nightmare of Charter Government, look out the window, believe nothing had changed, and get back to exercising the old omnipotent BOCC powers that presumably induced them to run for election in the first place.

Predictably, immediately following the landslide election results, we have previously noted the classic elements of the Kubler-Ross grief reaction. First, shock, as the Commissioners overnight lost their omnipotent status. Denial was close behind. For several weeks, they continued to talk in public forums about how concerned they were about the outcome and all the bad things that might now happen as a result of the election — "concerned" being the all-too-common euphemism among politicians for ideas or opinions they oppose but don't want to declare their opposition outright. In public session, one ex-commissioner and now council member even tried to present elements from the old-BOCC website as "evidence" that little need be different with the change to Charter Government. With almost the next breath, the public heard that (paraphrased) "…. there really isn't any need to move quickly with the transition as we can always fall back on the old ways until all the changes are in place".

Various expressions of the anger stage of the grief reaction followed. These began with the sitting triumvirate's out-of-hand rejection of the offer from the newly formed Citizens for Responsive County Government (CCRG) group of ex-freeholders and others involved with the Home Rule campaign to provide informed citizen assistance in the identification of candidates for the pro tem and permanent County Administrator positions.

Weeks followed of other "thanks but no thanks" and "trust us" responses to multiple emails and meetings offering support and assistance. Expressions of "wanting a smooth transition" stood in sharp contrast to weeks of inaction on moving to interview known candidates for the pro tem administrator position, the interviews finally being scheduled for the day before that position had to be filled.

So much for the preliminaries. All elected officials were sworn in early in January, the pro tem administrator arrived a couple of weeks later, and the transition began.

The new administrator has geared up rapidly, strongly supported by a county staff clearly demonstrating its enthusiasm for at long last having a single, professionally qualified and thoroughly experienced administrative hand at the helm. The added bonus for us all is that he has brought with him direct experience in the process of transition from the commissioner to the charter form of government.

Gently but firmly he is pushing to establish the separation of powers so central to the Charter, even as he runs into various expressions of behavioral opposition from council members. For those of us watching the process, a notable moment was when he was able to respond to the beginnings of an administrative meddle from the Council by telling them that not only did he know about the issue but was already well on his way to its resolution.

The moment did not pass unnoticed. Exercising admirable diplomacy, he has gently but firmly continued to remind the legislators that administrative matters are no longer in their portfolio of responsibility, even as they continue to demonstrate their penchant for rustling in that field.

So where are we now? It has taken nearly two months for the professional search for the permanent County Administrator to get up to speed. The good news is that we have been assured that a May timeframe for hiring is still on target. If so, then interested citizens should soon have the opportunity to observe the interviews and interact with candidates, complementing whatever perspective those candidates might receive from the recruiting firm or directly from the council members before or during their interviews.

Another welcome development has been the council chairman's introduction of humor into his management of council hearings, along with his rapid response to requests that documents be available for public perusal at the time of their discussion, thus contributing to increased transparency in government.

The not-so-good news is that we recently had to battle the Council into submitting to both the letter and the intent of the Charter when it came to how and by whom the Citizens Salary Commission was to be established. While this battle was finally won, it was more than unfortunate that it had to be fought in the first place.

Not only was the Council's attempt to re-interpret the Charter predictably doomed to failure, but it also invited the perception that they were attempting to intrude themselves into the process whereby ultimately their own salaries would be established. That they tried to do this even as their own legal counsel confirmed in great detail and in writing that they really could not proceed as they wanted is telling. To say nothing of how clearly this incident reflected a fundamentally less-than-enthusiastic attitude to the spirit of change called for by the landslide passage of the Charter.

Obstinacy has a bulldog quality. It is characteristically disregarding of contrary evidence to personally held viewpoints. Its most recent expression came when, last week, just before formally voting on the ordinance setting up the salary commission, one councilman took the pointedly unusual step of formally reading into the record a statement on how the County Council, in bowing to their own legal counsel's advice on state and county law, and the demand of Citizens for Responsive County Government that they honor both the letter and the spirit of the Charter, was not setting a precedent (sic).

There is a flavor of déjà vu about this. Commissioners putting themselves above the citizens they were elected to serve is the very behavior that led to the birth of the county's Home Rule movement and its subsequent landslide endorsement by the electorate. Now we have legislators without legal training trying to put their personal interpretation of state law above that of the Prosecuting Attorney who is not only the Council's designated formal legal counsel, but also an independently elected legal representative of the people.

Loss of power is the ultimate tragedy for politicians. Separation of powers is the ultimate protection of citizens against an overbearing government. In the nation's capital it is a favored tactic to manipulate legislation with self-serving amendments in the dead of night when nobody is watching.

In San Juan County, the citizens who put so much effort into developing and then passing the Charter are watching closely. Very closely.
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