Time

The Otsego County Board of Representatives Rules of Order (Rule #2) says that

Regular meetings of the Board shall be held at 10:00 a.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. All regular and special meetings of the Board shall be held at the Representatives' Chambers in the Village of Cooperstown, New York, except that upon approval of the affirmative weighted vote of at least three-fourths of the total membership of the Board, the time and meeting place of the Board may be changed...

So the time and day and place of the regular monthly meetings are baked into the Rules of Order, which are the Board's bylaws. And it takes three fourths of the board – three fourths! - to make a change.

Our monthly meetings are in the middle of the day, on a weekday (see below). The fact that it takes three fourths of the Board to change this – and nothing else we do is held to such a high standard – suggests something fishy, at least to me. When this rule was established, long ago, it was in someone's interest to make it very, very hard to change the meetings to the evenings, when many more of us can attend and participate. Having the meetings midday, midweek, means that it is much harder for nine-to-fivers to run and serve in the Board, and easier for small business owners, farmers and retired folks to run and serve. Guess which group the perpetual majority party is more likely to be made up of?

Time to move into the 21^st century and embrace diversity and citizen participation. In the January meeting, Andrew Stammel will propose this change to the Rules of Order: that the time, day or place of the regular monthly Board meeting will be established by majority vote.

Majority vote is the way we make the vast majority of our decisions, profound or trivial. If the majority of the Board – this or any future Board – wants a change, they should be able to do it, and not be held hostage by the partisan machinations of long-forgotten members.   

Raises are Back!

Looking back over previous posts, I see we left the "raises for M&C employees" story in a perilous position.  Things are looking up.

I am on the Budget Committee this year, as well as Admin, and between the two, we managed to establish an M&C salary raise for 2018.  This was a very good budget year, compared with the last ten years or so, with a lot of financial issues falling the right way for us (including a robust sales tax report).  This led some other Board members to be a bit more accepting of the idea of giving our management their second raise in nine years.

Everyone (except elected officials) gets a raise; those who have been in their current positions longer get larger raises.  This coming year, the PRGS Committee will spend whatever amount of time it takes to develop a perpetual salary scale for M&C employees, so we won't have to do this again, and so our management staff get the raises they deserve on an onging basis.  We'll either find a consulting firm who can help us develop the scale, or develop it ourselves (the more likely, and less expensive, option), with the help of our outstanding Personnel Director, Penney Gentile.

Time

Below is a list of current issues that the Otsego County Board of Representatives will be addressing, in the short or long term, in the new year. PLEASE let me know if you have any questions, concerns, ideas or suggestions regarding any of them. These are the things we'll be spending time and energy on, and we'd like to get them right.

One issue that may come as a surprise is the time of day that the Board meeting is held. In Otsego County, the Board meets as a whole on the first Wednesday of each month, at 10:00 in the morning. This means that, in general, people who have regular nine-to-five or other types of weekday jobs probably can't attend our meetings, either to speak their minds, as they have a right to do, or just to watch, observe, listen and learn.

In addition, of course, this restriction applies to anyone thinking of running for the Board, as well. With daytime meetings, you'd really have to own your own business (including a farm), be retired, or have a job with very flexible hours. Not surprisingly, those are the kinds of folks the Board is populated with. Nothing wrong with that, except that the daytime meeting time is keeping a lot of people with other kinds of jobs from running. I was actually looking into running in 2005, before I retired, and my boss – OCSD Superintendent Mike Shea, a great lover of history and government – had to ask me not to, as he felt the daytime meetings would have too great an impact on my work.

About half of all upstate rural NY Counties have their full Board meetings in late afternoon or the evening, so it can be done. It's time we opened the democratic process in Otsego County to everyone.

County Issues as of Now

CURRENT ISSUES – Late 2017

To be addressed before Jan 2018 Board meeting:

• Leadership – determining how everyone in the coaliton communicates and collaborates to develop an agenda and process for going forward.
• Committees – Assignment of committee chairs; assignment of Board members to committees. Committee structure – Maintain current committees as is, or make changes? Ag Committee, or centralize Ag work in one committee – SWEC?
• Meeting times – Daytime meetings close many people out of participation, either from attending meetings or running for Board seats. Change Board meetings to 6PM? How about Committee meetings?

Issues requiring longer-term planning, starting soon:

• County Manager – how to begin talking/acting on this? Task Force? Assign to Committee? Lots of data has already been gathered.
• Salary Study – Either contract with a consultant to create a perpetual salary scale, or make one up ourselves. PRGS Committee?
• Strategic Plan – How to go forward with this. Continue with current process (separate Committee)? How to establish clear guidelines for implementation?
• Communication with Department Heads – How to encourage regular, significant communication, empowering them and using their expertise to address current issues and to see what's coming and how to plan for it. Planning in general – How can we elicit and organize large amounts of information to facilitate medium and long-term planning in all areas of County function? How can we enroll Dept Heads and management staff in this process?
• Jail: Upgrade, expand, replace?

New systems to routinely monitor and assess, and report regularly to full Board

• Onondaga County – Otsego Co. Purchasing Dept. - Need a Rep, or a staff person, or a Committee to be dedicated liaison
• Enterprise Fleet Management – Public Works? Need to support a seamless transition and keep our eye on costs.
• Towers – Finish the job, sell the Rose Hill land. Assurance that both the function of the towers and their maintenance are working as planned. How can we monetize the towers?
• Economic development – Obviously, a big issue and a lot of work. Otsego Now must be reformed and empowered. Existing jobs that are not being taken by local people: Springbrook/ARCOtsego; agriculture; hospitality.
• Budget – Planning for 2019 – new Treasurer, new process? Does it make sense to find ways to keep track of the budget process all year long? Do we need a Finance Committee that also does the Budget?
• County Forester (Soil & Water) – SWEC tracks progress toward explicit goals
• Ethics Board
• Various litigation issues

Going Forward

It's been a long time, again, and a lot has been done.

Since August, I have been working with the Democratic candidates for County Rep; other than Andrew Marietta and Andrew Stammel, they were all new to the work of the County Representative. I provided a lot of background regarding Board structure and function, as well as very extensive communications and conversations about particular issues that the Board has been working on. This work intensified during the run-up to the debates, which were held in a variety of places throughout the County.

Four of the new candidates, as well as Andrew and Andrew and I, were elected, and we had what turned out to be a pretty joyful election night celebration. As of January 1 there will be seven Democrats on the Board, although the Republicans represent a slight majority in weighted votes. But the Republicans may not be unified regarding Board leadership as we go forward, and there is a distinct possibility that we Democrats will be participating in what can only be called a coalition government when the gavel comes down on January 3.

I try to avoid partisan politics in these messages, but at this point I think it's important to lay out how things stand. There are some Republicans who have expressed dissatisfaction with current leadership. However, they cannot prevail without Democratic votes. So we will all be talking about how we can go forward, supporting each others' vision for the County and the major issues we are facing.

I think we will be able to work out a plan which will satisfy everyone. There's a lot of work to do, and I think that with a commitment to transparency, communication and bipartisan cooperation, we'll get that work done. Stay tuned.