County Watch
by G. L. Penney

  At the last public meeting of the Tioga County Legislature, I found out how difficult it is to change long accepted practices that I consider not to be in the best public interest. At that meeting, I made a motion to direct the attorney to prepare the necessary local law to abolish the position of county manager. I was defeated seven to two.

 Mr. Burns, who is on record as opposing the position of county manager, told me later that he had voted against me on procedural grounds only. It seems that there is a formally adopted procedure whereby all resolutions for the consideration of the county legislature are prepared in advance by the various departments with no direct input from the legislature and little, if any, input from the appropriate committee chairman. It is currently the practice of the legislature to act only on these prepared resolutions.

 This procedure is certainly not in the best interest of the general public. Rather, it gives primary consideration to the department heads and county employees. It's going to take a lot of effort on my part to try to change this.