Three Strikes
You’re Out
An Opinion
While I
don’t know if the news reports are true, it appears that Allegany County
Legislators will shortly be looking for a new County Administrator. Does this
sound familiar? The constant upset at the County Government cannot be good for
either the Citizen Taxpayers or the Department Heads and County Employees.
When John
Margeson was contemplating his retirement as County Administrator, Mitch Alger
was hired, first as the Deputy County Administrator under John and then
promoted as “the chosen one”, to County Administrator, according to one former
Legislator. This didn’t work out well for many reasons. Mitch left after a very
few years.
Then after
much searching and hand ringing by the Legislators they hired Tim Boyde.
Initially Tim told us he would be staying for five years but that didn’t work
out either. Once again Tim left after a very few years.
Then once
again the Legislators commenced a search for a new County Administrator and
hired Deborah A. McDonnell. It appears that after only four months the
Legislators will be starting the process all over again to hire a new County
Administrator. Does anyone notice a pattern? Each time the Legislators hire a
new Administrator, their term of service to the taxpayers gets shorter. I
believe that maybe it’s time for a change in the process.
Many
Counties in New York have an Elected County Executive form of Government. This
would require a large change in how the County Government is actually setup and
run. I don’t believe these changes would be any more expensive than the
constant changes in this position, and necessary training where the new person
will probably take a year to come up to speed. Since the Legislators have tried
three times, and apparently struck out every time maybe they should make the necessary
changes to allow the Citizen Taxpayers of the County to vote on whom they would
like to have in the position as an Elected County Executive. With a four year
term, we certainly would have more consistency than we have had over the last
six years and the Elected Executive would be working for the Citizen Taxpayers
and not for the Legislators. With this form of Government if the Elected
Executive fails to meet expectations it was the Taxpayers choice and they can
replace him or her at the next election.
Richard G Hollis
