Legislature should keep an open mind about county executive

Posted 8/21/12

Every 10 years a commission is appointed to look at the charter of Sullivan County to see if the county could benefit with changes to the charter and to recommend any changes to the county …

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Legislature should keep an open mind about county executive

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Every 10 years a commission is appointed to look at the charter of Sullivan County to see if the county could benefit with changes to the charter and to recommend any changes to the county legislature, which may then accept or reject them.

When the process wrapped up the last time in 2007, the commission made several suggestions, the most important of which was that the county should change its form of government from one where the legislature makes all the important decisions, to one where an elected county executive will make many of the important decisions, but the legislature will still have a role to play.

The county legislature chose to ignore the recommendation about changing to a county executive, but they did adopt some of the other changes.

A new charter review commission is now pondering changes to the county charter, and judging by statements made to the legislature by members of the commission, it seems likely that it will make the same suggestion.

Speaking earlier this summer to the legislature, commission member Larry Richardson said that when the process started, several members were opposed to change, but listening to experts speak on the subject—such as those involved in shepherding Ulster County through the process of moving to a county executive—the members have nearly all come to the conclusion that the benefits of changing outweigh the drawbacks.

There is evidence nearby that a county executive can be a positive change for a county. Ulster County switched to a county executive in 2008, and the results have been seen by many as very positive.

Beatrice Havranek, the Ulster County attorney, addressed the charter review commission in June and spoke about the change. She said, “The biggest difficulty that the legislature has had since they adopted the charter is it has been difficult for them to understand that they no longer have the authority or responsibility for operations. If the Department of Public Works decides that it needs to build a bridge or do something important, the chief executive officer [county executive] and his departments are involved. The beauty of having an executive is that they can say that this project needs the Department of Public Works, the Department of Environment and the county attorney’s office, [and say] ‘I am directing all of you to get together and figure this out and do it now and I want it done by a certain date.’ Previously, it would go through two or three committee meetings and there would be discussion and it would take so much time to come to a conclusion that yes, they need to rebuild this bridge.”

Another important change with a county executive is that in dealing with Albany, the county is represented to the governor and state lawmakers by a single person, and not by all of the separate legislators. This was especially important in the case of Ulster County. It had 32 legislators at the time, which has since been reduced to 23.

The change in Ulster may have been helped along by the fact that a couple of years earlier the public had been treated to a 39% property tax increase to pay for a new jail that went wildly beyond budget. The people were clearly ready for a change. Still, it was important that a supermajority of the legislators voted for the change, because without that, the matter would not have gone to the people for a vote.

That is also the case in Sullivan; if the legislators do not vote by at least a six-to-three margin to change the form of government, the people will never get to vote on it.

The charter review commission still has plenty of work to do to finalize the details of its recommendation. The legislature is pressuring the commission to finish its work by December. In our view, in light of the sweeping changes the commission is going to propose, its work should not be rushed. There is no time limit tied to the review period, and there’s probably a good reason for that. The members of the commission, who are all volunteers, should have all the time they need to investigate and deliberate.

After that, the legislators should try to put their own agendas aside and take a good hard look at what will be best for the residents of Sullivan County.

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