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Chewing The Fat...a discussion
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What are the questions we should be asking?
What makes Brown County unique?
How do we keep what makes Brown County unique?
If economic development is necessary to keep BC like we like it then what does economic development mean?
If we don't change what we are doing now what will happen?
What should the county government do to help...should private business do everything?
Send your thoughts to me at jwa@billaustin.com
or visit the blog www.gnawbone.com/blog1
HOW SHOULD GOVERNMENT LEADERS CONDUCT BUSINESS
The PAC (Public Access Counselor) is the state office that advises on what is required to be "openly discussed" and what is not. In general all discussions need to take place in a public meeting. Recently there has been advice from that office that says email and possibly other electronic forms of communication can be handled differently. Discussions that take place on email are allowed and therefore even though they must be produced for if requested, are not required to be held in a "public meeting" as a discussion would if it were had verbally.
This appears like its going to be a long debate because it does not appear to be so simple. Even if the PAC is wrong then what is the proper legal interpretation? Even if we know the legalities, what are the ethical rules? How does the public really know what is going on? I’m betting others will have even more comments.
I’m not sure I agree that this was a major problem of for example the fire district discussion (per comments from some). But then again maybe disclosure of discussions was a problem in some cases. The bigger problem with the fire discussion was that there wasn’t enough discussion…legal or illegal. But then again, that’s my view.
This discussion is a LOT more important for a 3 person board like Board of County Commissioners or the Economic Development Commission (EDC). With a larger board, discussion can and does happen between members that do not constitute a majority. With 3 person boards there can be no discussion between members without it being a majority. Several people have talked a bit about this but how do we have good understanding and enough discussion on a 3 person board if we cannot discuss matters at length? If we discuss things at length in a public meeting will we have long excruciating meetings every week? To date we have had terribly inadequate discussions in our Commissioner meetings. This leaves the questions open...
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Practical solutions require practical approaches--
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Some thoughts-
On Emergency Services...road and house numbers...
We probably need road signs and house numbers to help find people in emergencies, but there are those who don't want that. There are solutions like we see on TV --there's something given by a patient to a doctor expressing their wishes...a DNR, "Do Not Resuscitate". If someone doesn't want a house number they should give the ambulance service a DNL -- "Do Not Locate". Eventually this will solve the problem.
On Road Maintenance...
Its established that here, " on the old dirt roads in Brown County", we have a public right of way that covers "the part that's used" ... it extends from the edge of the gravel on one the side of the road to the edge of the gravel on the other side. This dates back to early roads only wide enough for the wagons. For today's fancier roads that are desired to be rut free we should offer those that allow ditches expedited maintenance of the dirt.
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Bill Austin
jwa@billaustin.com
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