Letter to the Editor: County Executive Isolates Himself and Plays Political Games

To nthe editor,

In 2008, the citizens of Jefferson County voted to move Jefferson County from a commission style of government to a charter form of government.  This year, the first seven-member council was seated to start the implementation of provisions of this charter and move past the old practices. 

Fundamental in the charter is a council setting policy and an executive implementing this policy. Up to this point it has been business as usual with the executive driving the agenda without consultation. This should be evident as seen through the budget process that has transpired. The charter requires the executive to provide the council with a proposed budget.  It is then the council’s responsibility to approve or amend the budget that was presented by the executive.  Past practice was for the executive to continue to modify the budget until the final vote which perpetuates the old commission-style executive branch.  The executive branch influence on the process has sent us down the familiar “it’s the way we have always done it” and redirected the proper role of the council in the budget process set out by the charter.  The executive using unanticipated revenue to distract the council from the budget process outlined in the charter and using the same for advantage should cause pause. 

This has become an all too familiar situation where the executive fails to engage the council directly and the council is left to ferret out critical information on its own at the last minute.  The decision of the executive to isolate himself from the council continues to be unproductive where one of his duties is clearly to execute and enforce “policies of the County Council” and not his own.  The executive needs to put the politics of the old commission behind us and stop playing a “victim of the council” game which is clearly the political spin he has decided on. 
      This Councilman, for one, has heard the citizens’ voice, “Principles not Politics”.

Don Bickowski,
Councilman, 1st District,
High Ridge