Here & There Column 9-18-07

Politicians Say One Thing & Do The Opposite

You just got to love this time of the year.......it's politicians saying one thing and doing just the opposite after elections.
We are already seeing signs and hearing statements that read and say, "Lower Taxes", "Will Cut Your Taxes", "Vote For Me."
We have solidly endorsed the formation of the Sullivan County Council of Governments.
Although this is an ad hoc group of county, town, village and school district officials, they can be responsible to taxpayers throughout the county.
Kudos to this group for bringing up the subject on possibly consolidating services or if you will the merger of services.
Cutting costs and improving efficiency in services is a good thing and we would hope that the group takes it further then just justice courts, tax collection and public works.
But, in the meantime the Sullivan County Charter Commission shelved any recommendation on the creation of the position of county executive but have given some thoughts about adding a 10th member to the county legislature.
If this proposal became a reality if would be a full-time (chairman) position with an annual salary in the neighborhood of $80,000.
We are not too sure about this 10th member being elected on a county-wide basis as it might conflict with the full-time county manager's position and fiscally can Sullivan County afford something like this.
Some would say it's just adding another layer of government and do we need and can we afford this additional 10th member position?
Now we don't want members of the Sullivan County Charter Commission to misunderstand where we are coming from on this subject. This fine group of county volunteers have and or doing an outstanding job and residents of the county appreciate their efforts.
We would like to see the Sullivan County Council of Governments talk more about consolidating all the governments within the county instead of just the consolidation of services......but......this might involve elimination of some of their jobs.....and well you know...... politicians really don't work too hard on this subject.
Ironically, while some talk about implementing programs to decentralize services, the impetus should be to merge governments so that we can see better and cheaper government.
Sullivan County, like many jurisdictions throughout New York State and the United States, struggle at times with serious fiscal stress as a combination of higher costs for existing services and reduced tax revenues produce budgetary shortfalls.
Politicians find this difficult to talk about and more so don't want to go up this ladder because it might mean the loss of their job, but, in the long run we cannot continue to face tax increases year in and year out. New York State is one of the leaders in taxes and it's time voters put a stop to this and elect government representatives who will do something about this problem.