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.
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