Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Citizen Membership on County Committees

In our Informations Systems Committee meeting this month, we discussed the status of the committee's citizen member.

The comittee was set up to be 5 board members and one citizen member. However, in the time that I have been on the committee the citizen member has not been there for a single meeting.

In both of the last two meetings we had, we discussed what should happen to this position, re-appoint a new mamber, or eliminate the position.

There are good arguments on both side of the issue. With the (potentially) upcoming county board restructure, a newly appointed member may only sit for a few months and need to be replaced. Therefore by eliminating the position on the committee we would eliminate any confusion.

While I understand this point, I disagree. I believe we should be working to get the community more involved in government, not less.

At the reccomendation of the Committee Chair, the County Board Chair and the Corp Council, there will be a resulution upcoming to eliminate the position. I will vote against it.

If you are interested in an appointment to the Information Systems Committee as a citizen member, I would reccomend contacting the County Board Chair.

Lets keep up citizen involvement in government.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff,

rather than eliminating the citizen position you should consider having an attendance policy for citizen members. We recently did this in the City of Menasha which would give the chair the power to ask for removal if the person misses more than a certain percentage of the meetings.

7:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would like to be a citizen member. How do I go about obtaining that position?

8:59 PM  

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