Welp. Here’s the thing. We’ve got a race happening here in Adair County for county commissioner. You’ve probably seen the candidate’s signs when you’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Baltimore.
Harley Harrelson vs. Stanley Pickens.
County commissioner. Sounds flashy, but what does the county commissioner do? Let’s start with a definition, shall we?
Commissioner: [kuh-mish-uh-ner]
- a person commissioned to act officially; member of a commission.
There you have it folks. My work here is done. I’ve brought you information more insightful than anything that has come before it. We are electing an individual to act officially (what does that even mean?) and wear a membership badge.
…Okay, so maybe that’s not all.
Before writing this post, we gave our political communication class a survey to find out exactly what people know (or don’t know) about the county commissioner.
______________________________________________________________________________
Question 1:
Do you know what the general duties of County Commissioner consist of? No Yes
If yes, please elaborate.
______________________________________________________________________________
Responses:
- “I think they are in charge of delegating funds for the county or city.”
- “Usually a group of people from different areas who pass city ordinances and whatnot… Legislative House of the city.”
- “Main duty is regarding finances/taxes. Plus many things regarding county.”
And our personal favorite.
o “Turn the light on for the friendly neighborhood Batman.”
Oh, and ten people circled no.
______________________________________________________________________________
Question 2:
Do you know who is running for County Commissioner in Adair County? No Yes
If yes, tell me!
______________________________________________________________________________
Responses:
- “Clark?”
- “Swaim” (Wrong, but while we’re on the subject, Kristie Swaim is running for associate circuit judge against Josh Meyer. Post to come.)
And then we have someone who wrote in his or her own "maybe" and circled it.
- They wrote, “Pickens?” Have some confidence, people!
And the star student of our political communication class:
- “Harrelson and Pickens and I think one other person?”
We’ll just scratch off that last part…
o “Harrelson and Pickens and I think one other person?”
We’ve been working on finding an official description of the county commissioner, but it’s proving to be harder than we thought. Harrelson has a basic explanation of commissioner duties on his website. Here’s what we found.
o Construction and maintenance of public buildings
o Granting licenses
o Fixing the tax levies for the county and having the same collected
o Authorizing payments owed by the county and auditing all officers having control of county monies
o Managing county property and county funds
o Prosecuting and defending all actions for and against the county
o Overseeing the construction and repair of county roads and bridges
That’s a starting point, but we think there’s still a lot we need to know. In the next few weeks, we will to try and meet with Harrelson and Pickens to find out directly from them what a commissioner really does. (Besides act officially, of course.)
After all…
To vote for the right person for the job, we have to know what the job is.
Until then, comment on this post if you have any ideas about the commissioner or anything else related to Adair County!
No comments:
Post a Comment