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Editorials - 07/26/01County government to enter new era |
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The people spoke, the commissioners acted and one week from today Jackson County's first full-time, non-interim, non-elected county manager will be on the job at the Justice Center.
We were outspoken in our belief that the people should decide the question of elected or appointed manager, and we didn't mind saying we preferred the former.
We think Commissioners' Chairman Jay Denton did a fine job as county manager, and we wish that commissioners had chosen to make the change to an appointed manager effective at the end of their term. We wonder at the logic of replacing a two-plus year veteran county manager (Denton) with a novice interim manager (Part-time Commissioner Stacy Buchanan) for the three or four weeks before the professional county manager arrived. It seems to us that in these times of budget shortfalls, the manager's job could have been handled by department heads for that brief period. We are baffled by the rifts and hostility that seem to have developed among our five commissioners - all members of the same political party - who presented such a united front at the start of their tour of duty. We hope that bringing in professional manager Ken Westmoreland will be the right choice for Jackson County. Ideally, county commissioners will be able to put aside their differences, curb their tendency to micromanage and let Westmoreland make the day-to-day decisions. Jackson County's growth is reaching epidemic proportions - anyone can do anything they want with a bulldozer, as one letter-writer pointed out this week - and our leaders need to focus their energies and attention on managing that growth in a way that preserves our beautiful mountains and treasured way of life. We have arrived at the brink of this major change in local government in what is already a significant year in the history of our county. As we celebrate the county's 150th birthday, we will have a front-row seat to watch this latest chapter unfold. A lengthy court battle proved several years ago that our county commissioners can change the form of local government any time they choose; whether this latest change to an appointed manager is permanent or fleeting remains to be seen. And it's too early to address how well Westmoreland and these commissioners will be able to work together to achieve a better tomorrow for Jackson County We'll leave that to the newspaper's 2051 editorial writers when they look back on Jackson County's first 200 years. |
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