Here & There Column 3-12-13

Movement On  Supervisors Proposal

  Heavy discussion is taking place throughout Sullivan County on the topic of restoring the Sullivan County Board of Supervisors.

  As we have firmly stated the folks are not happy with a 10 percent unemployment rate and the county legislature raising taxes by nine percent.

  Just the other day while at a function six Sullivan County residents voiced total  support for returning county government back to the former Board of Supervisors with one stated he has a committee organized to join in support of this movement.

  There just is not very much support for the present county legislature and few support a change from an appointed manager to an elected executive.

  The County legislature and the suggestion of adding an elected executive is nothing more then adding one layer of government on top of another layer that just cost too much for taxpayers of Sullivan County to handle.

  To add to this growing movement the Sullivan County Supervisors Association has unanimously endorsed the concept of scrapping the county legislature and going back to government run by the county's town supervisors.

  Town of Highland supervisor Andrew Boyar, one of Sullivan County's longest serving supervisors stressed the points that interaction the supervisors had then with each other is now lost and the folks could question their own supervisor on a monthly basis and get a report on what's going on in Monticello and the county government.

  These feelings support what we have heard for many years in that the county legislators have little or no communications with their town supervisors.

  As we have previously noted County legislators like Cindy Kurpil Gieger honestly has shown her true feelings that the county is moving toward new goals of fiscal accountability and oversight of residents tax dollars and wants to turn away from the present status quo and the good old boy form of government we have seen for so many years.

  She has made it very clear that the executive form of government is just another layer of government and that it could be very costly.

  Under a County Board of Supervisors (BOS) she would serve well as an elected board chairman because she is advocating that she  would "like to see us improve the foundation of government."  

  That foundation so many residents of the county have told us is the return to the Board of Supervisors which is the body that supervises the operation of county government in a number of counties in New York State (NYS). 

  A Board of Supervisors in NYS has legislative, executive and quasi-judicial powers. In NYS the BOS is made up and composed of the various town supervisors from across the county. Some BOS after the 1960's assigned each member a proportional vote based on the population that supervisor represented. 

  Some of these boards have allowed county voters to elect a full-time county manager or county executive. 

  Let's hope that Sullivan County Supervisors Association President Daniel Sturm's statement that they want to put this proposal to Sullivan County voters this November becomes a reality so that the voters and not the politicians can decide  the fate of this issue.