Returning to Blogging

After an election campaign that got me out to see most of you this fall, and a late autumn and winter that was, to say the least, eventful, novel and exciting (and which involved a whole lot of travel), I'm back here at the blog. We've got a new Board – 7 of the fourteen of us are new January 1 – and a lot to do in a year in which there don't seem to be major difficulties or issues that might divert us for long periods of time. So it may be time to start thinking of some long-term planning.

Some directions I'd like to see us take:

• Comprehensive Plan: We need to know where we're going if we're going to get there. If we don't we'll just drift. We completed a Strategic Plan at the end of last year, and when the final report is available I'll make it available. I see this as a start – a quick process that identified some priorities.
• County Manager: This is one of the priorities which came up during the Strategic Plan process. More and more of us on the Board are thinking more seriously about it. Over five hundred employees in over 25 departments, and no CEO. I feel confident that we'll see some progress here this year. It's not going to happen quickly, partly because it will be a complex process, and partly because we really need to have a consensus for a County Manager without a stubborn opposition that can sabotage the process.
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: This task force operated under the supervision of the SWEC (Solid Waste and Environmental Concerns) Committee last year, and came up with a list of recommendations for SWEC and the County Board to pursue. This included further work on recycling textiles; thin plastic film (think plastic grocery bags); expanded polystyrene (EPS), otherwise known as styrofoam, and mattresses. We also talked about establishing an Otsego Green certification, which a business can earn by following a set of guidelines regarding recycling, reducing waste (for instance, not providing plastic garbage bags), reducing carbon footprint, etc.
• Fair Pay for Employees: The management/confidential (all non-union) County workers have had one raise in eight years, and as time goes on, the problems that this causes mount up: turnover of essential employees; unwillingness of staff to seek promotion; some staff managing union staff who make more than they do; not to mention the frustration and mistrust it creates between the Board and our department heads. This has to be fixed.

This year, I'm still on the Human Services Committee (which I chair again), the Health and Education Committee, and the Performance Review and Goal Setting Committee. I'm also on SWEC, which is a great thing. Let me know if you have any questions, concerns or ideas in any of these areas.