One legislator too little to do business
How many Westchester legislators does it take to conduct business?
Well, under the rules of county government, the answer is nine and that spelled trouble today for the Board of Legislators. Only eight showed up this afternoon for the special meeting called by Chairman William Ryan, forcing them to quickly adjourn without taking any action.
Ryan had called the meeting earlier in the week so that lawmakers could set the date for a public hearing on the county’s proposed Fair Housing Law. The public hearing was to be held on March 11th but may now have to be pushed back.
According to Ryan, nine of the 17 legislators had initially indicated they would attend today’s session. One, however, canceled at the last moment because of family issues.
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Less than half of these people can show up for a meeting. Either they didn’t want to be there to record a vote of any kind, or they’re using county taxpayers’ cars, gas, and insurance to conduct more important private business
that isn’t really the point..they are getting big
money to show up….all of them should have been
available…except they have other jobs which
require that they show up…unlike this part
time job….abolish county government as we know it
The problem was scheduling meeting on limited notice. Many of the legislators that were not there have jobs. County Legislator is still officially a part time job. The vast majority of meetings for the job take place on either Monday or Tuesday, and for the rest of the week several of the legislators go to other jobs. Frankly, this is the way it is supposed to be. We don’t want these county legislator to become full-time – we want them out in the real world. The pay for the job is about $49,000 and you cannot survive in this county on that salary – they need to work to support families.
Ed, your post is unfair. The legislators with jobs can’t just walk out of office because a meeting to vote on only one item is called on short notice. I bet you cannot walk out of your job whenever you wish.
The Consultant’s on point. “Abolish county
government as we know it.”
Bob described the situation as I understand it.
Committee meetings and board meetings are almost always scheduled for Monday or Tuesday. In addition, the board’s regular meetings for the entire year are listed on the internet in January. For example, the next scheduled board meeting is March 11. Accordingly, some legiuslators used the hiatus for a vacation, others filled their day job calendars because they know to keep other days (Mondays and Tuesdays) clear.
The problem in this case was, nine legislators are needed for a quorum and the chairman had a committment from exactly nine. I was taught in Management 101 that you don’t run a business with no margin for error. Time and chance happeneth to us all. One of the nine had a family circumstance and there was no plan B.
As for eliminating county government, the county is a creature of the state. The state uses the counties to act as the state’s agent of choice for delivering social services. If the state legislature and the governor choose to they could pick up the responsibility and eliminate the county government.
From the state politicians’s perspective this is a lose lose. Under the current system, the state requires the county to deliver social services and pay for much of them through the county property tax. The state gets credit for the benefits, the county gets the blame for the property tax. Eliminate the county government (which only the state can do) and the state must deliver social services and the state would have to tax for the full funding.
Compounding the problem, some of the county electeds don’t like the humble role assigned them by the state, so some of the electeds use more tax money to solve global warming, supply free shredding services, and build housing for government employees.
It is an unneccessary layer of government but it cannot by law abolish itself. Consultant, your complaint should be directed to Albany and not White Plains.
Which one didn’t show?
From Westchester: You seem to know a goodly bit about the inner workings of this county board. Were you a regular reader of this blog, however, you would know also that the Consultant (and others) are very well aware of the methodology necessary to eliminate, or at least, downsize this county government and the proper diversion of certain responsibilities, especially in their redundancies, to local elected government,
Ed,
In re-reading my post, I see that a reasonable person could infer that I perceived Consultant to not know that which I know he knows (whew.
My concern was that an unknowable percentage of readers could say, “Consultant is right. Those bozos in White Plains should eliminate county government.” Had I taken more time I would have written something on the order of, “Consultant is right. The state govenment should should eliminate county government.” Thanks for the help.
well you are all right in some form or another…
eliminate county governement as we know it does not mean
that there would be an elimination of every single function
now performed by county government. But there is simply no
need for a full time political executive with all that
entails. aides like Schwartz and Tolchin for example,
comissioners of this and that…a bloated staff….
an elected county board….just hire a manager and
administer 85% of the state mandated costs as efficiently
as possible..we don;t need elected officials siting around
decising whether or not to impeach the president.i for
one am not willing to pay for that kind of garbage…
Go back to westchester 2000 and eleiminate redundancy
in servcies throughout the county as well 46 police forces
46 part time justices, 46 mayors or supervisors…
46 fire departments…its just a huge waste of money
sad, sad, sad …. shame on you all.
The Legislator who was suppossed to show had a family member was taken to the hospital – in very serious condition.
Who it is is not really important.
The name of the person that didn’t show should be disclosed.
There’s no reason not to disclose the name.
There were nine legislators who did not attend:
Bronz, Burrows, Kaplowitz, Maisano, Myers, Nonna, Oros, Spreckman, and Williams
Although I agree that abolishing or dramatically reducing the size of the county government makes a lot of sense, I do want to say that you should be criticizing the leadership of county legislature here not the legislators that missed the meeting The meeting never should have been called at a time when so many legislators could not make it. You can’t have it both ways on this blog. Weeks ago everyone was saying that it is a part time job, and you are right to say so. Therefore, the fact that the legislators with jobs could not make this meeting certainly shows it is not their fault. Look at who missed the meeting: Burrows, Kaplowitz, Maisano, Nonna, Oros, and Williams. Those six go to their jobs when not at county legislature. No one should expect them to miss a day of work to go to a ten minute emergency meeting to vote on only one item and that item was just to set up a public hearing for a later date.
I was going to stay out of this one after my first
comment yesterday, which backed the Consultant.
People just used this story as a means, correctly in
my view, to make the point that county govt. in
its present form is very expensive, a waste of time,
and overall is not needed as currently structured.
I also don’t think people need these “nannies” lecturing
us on trans fats, bicycle helmets, impeaching this or
any president, and probably also pontificating about the
rising price of falling stars.
County goverment (that’s false labeling, pass a law!)
has grown tremendously since 2000—in terms of bloat,
patronage, cost and waste. Other than all that, it’s
simply wonderful.
What’s the point of any Republican showing up at all, ever? May as well just send a representative from the press to record the chicanery.