An idea whose time has come!

Is it time to scrap Sanpete County’s 3-countywide-commissioners form of government in favor of an expanded county council?  An increasing number of Sanpete County citizens believe it is.  The subject has been discussed behind the scenes of Sanpete County politics for years.  Recent events have thrown the issue into sharp relief as the limitations and flaws of the current system have manifest themselves to the detriment of both the commissioners and the county. 

Other counties who have wrestled with this problem have found the 3-commissioner system lacking.  Utah’s counties increasingly seem to be abandoning the 3-commissioner form of government in favor of expanded county councils in various forms.  Some who have made the change are Grand, Cache, Salt Lake, Wasatch and, just last year, Summit County.

Now, for the first time, an organized, serious effort aimed at changing our county government has the backing and support of many prominent citizens.  A committee has been formed that is drafting a plan to scrap the current 3-countywide commissioner form of government in favor of a 5 member county council that would be elected from five clearly defined council districts.  (To see a map of the proposed county council districts, click on this link.)

The proposed plan also includes hiring a qualified professional County Manager who would take over the chief executive officer duties currently being performed piece-meal by our part-time commissioners.  The County Manager would serve at the pleasure of the county council.  Some of the thinking leading to the effort is as follows:

COUNTY GOVERNMENT GROWTH AND ITS INCREASING COMPLEXITY HAS OUTSTRIPPED THE CAPACITY OF OUR THREE PART-TIME COMMISSIONERS TO EFFECIENTLY AND EFFECTIVELY PERFORM

The current three-countywide-commissioners form of government goes back to the time when the county’s towns were small, the budget was small and the county government relatively simple.  Sanpete County government has grown enormously both in size and complexity since then.  Today the budget is in the millions of dollars.  The geopolitical landscape has shifted significantly with the amazing growth of the north end of the county.  The complexity of county government has increased exponentially as services have increased and the demands on county government have escalated.  And finally, state and federally mandated programs and regulations have made governing and administration more difficult, expensive and demanding. 

While all this has been going on, our county commission has remained the same.  It consists of three part-time commissioners who have both legislative and executive officer responsibility for county government, all the while trying to maintain their full-time jobs in the private sector.  These people are part-time politicians, not professionally trained or educated governmental administrators.  The workload of acting as the county legislative body, governing, and performing the actual hands-on work of administering of the county’s day-to-day business has become overwhelmingly demanding and complex.  Too much can slip through the cracks as the commissioners try to maintain their full-time jobs, family responsibilities, and perform effectively and competently in their part-time jobs as commissioners.

There is no question that the county would benefit enormously by retaining a full-time professional County Manager who is educated, trained and experienced in public administration.  Fairview City has retained the services of such a professional manager on just a part-time basis and Mayor Cox characterizes the benefits to the city as being “in the millions of dollars.”

Hiring such a professional would get the commissioners (or council members) out of the business of handling the day-to-day personnel issues and all the daily minutia of running the business of the county and let them go about the business of legislating and governing much more efficiently and effectively.   It would put a professional in charge of tracking grants and other financial opportunities, writing grants and applications, establishing efficient executive management policies and procedures, coordinating county departments, drafting and proposing budgets, maximizing county revenues and the efficient use of county assets.  It would maintain consistency of policy implementation and management from one political administration to the next.  The savings and benefits from the retention of such a professional could easily be counted in the millions of dollars in a very short period of time.

GROWTH HAS CHANGED THE GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE COUNTY MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR COMMISSIONERS TO ADEQUATELY REPRESENT ALL THE DIVERSE INTERESTS AND CONSTITUENCIES THAT EXIST IN 21^ST CENTURY SANPETE COUNTY

Time was that Manti was the center of the Sanpete universe, both in terms of population and political influence.  That is no longer the case.  Today over 65% of the county population lives north of Manti, with over 43% of the population living north even of Ephraim.  The north end of the county is experiencing explosive growth that will see this pattern of population imbalance accelerate even more in coming years. 

This shift has translated into a corresponding shift in the political landscape that is not properly reflected in the structure of our county government.  There is a strong perception in the north that the three-countywide-commissioners form of government is placing the north end of the county at a significant disadvantage compared to the less populated south. 

Part of the problem is the so called “gentlemen’s agreement” whereby the major political party (read that “us Republicans”), who dominate the election process in the county, have, as a matter of policy and practice, traditionally nominated one candidate from the north, one candidate from the central area (read that “Manti”,) and one candidate from the south (Gunnison Valley).  While well intentioned, the policy has actually created a de facto functional discrimination in favor of the south since Manti and the Gunnison Valley have, for many years, dominated the county commission despite being significantly less populous than the rest of the county. 

No issue has more starkly highlighted this fact than the recent controversy over where the fairground should be located.  In August of 2006, a petition signed by every Mayor of every city north of Manti was presented to the county commission asking them to consider locating the fairground closer to where the majority of the county’s population lives.  The commission nominally formed a committee supposedly for the purpose of studying the issue.  While that was the publicly stated purpose of the committee, at the very time the committee was meeting, the commissioners were giving assurances that, “no matter what”, the fairground would remain in Manti.  The public charge to the committee was to “study” the location, finances and venues that should be included in a future fairground, but the committee chairman was instructed behind the scenes by one or more commissioners (from the south) that the committee was not to study alternative sites or financial considerations of additional venues not compatible with the Manti location or other significant revenue generation considerations.

Despite the contradictory instruction, just when the committee was beginning to take certain steps what could have led to a true random sampling of public opinion, the commissioners suddenly stepped in and dissolved the committee without any study or analysis of any kind of alternative sites or other considerations as to what might be in the best financial interests of the county, and announced that the fairground would remain in Manti, “no matter what.” 

This arbitrary and prejudicial decision without objective study or financial analysis of alternatives was a thumb-in-the-eye of every city government north of Manti and an insult to a large number of citizens who were rebuffed by the commission’s arrogant summary dismissal of even the most rudimentary consideration of the petitioners’ request to at least study alternatives.

In defense of the commission, (if it were possible to plausibly defend such indefensible and prejudicial actions), they were in a “no-win” situation on this issue.  No matter what they did, they were going to offend one major constituency or the other.  In the future, as the diversity of the county continues to grow, similar issues involving conflicts of interest between the various geopolitical constituencies of the county will undoubtedly rear their heads more and more often.

The underlying problem is that the county has grown so diverse in its body politic, both geographically and politically, that it is now impossible for our countywide elected commissioners to adequately balance and represent all the diverse geopolitical interests that need advocacy in county government without jeopardizing their reelection in the next election. 

The solution being proposed is to get rid of countywide elected commissioners and replace them with council members from each of the natural geopolitical areas of the county, then let them be free to advocate for their district’s interests without fear of losing the next election because they offended another geopolitical constituency on the other side of the county.  Such a system recognizes the natural diversity of the county, is responsive to local growth patterns, gives more balanced representation across the board, and assures that the various interests of each constituency is given proper advocacy and consideration in the dissemination of county services and opportunities.

Interestingly, in the past, one of those speaking out in favor of such a change has been none other than current Sanpete County Commissioner, Mark Anderson.  He has strongly advocated such a change to previous commissioners.   Such a change was also the subject of one of the first conversations that took place between Anderson and Suzanne Dean, owner and publisher of the Sanpete County Messenger, when she first took over the newspaper.  It will be interesting to see where he comes down on the issue today now that he is an elected Commissioner.

Committee organizers intend to begin a petition drive under Utah law that, if successful, would lead to the first step in the process; the creation of a “study committee” who would have up to one year to study the county’s options and make a recommendation to commissioners as to their findings.  If enough registered voter signatures are gathered on the petition, it will trigger a special election on the issue of whether or not to create the study committee.  In advance of the petition drive, one or more public meetings will be held by organizers to explain their goal and how the process works.

This subject has been posted as a major topic on our blog.  We encourage you to click on the blog button, register to use the blog, and then post your opinion for others to see.