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Time for counties to get professionalRecently, I attended a meeting designed for people interested in starting small businesses in small-town America. There were very few people in that sort of enterprise in attendance, but lots of county-level economic development professionals were there. What troubled me was that, with hardly any exception, the most successful counties had professionals who had been in their positions for many years, while it seemed less successful ones seemed to have a revolving door policy for their eco-devo chiefs. Obviously, the young turks at this meeting were trying to grasp as much knowledge as they could while in some cases privately discussing their frustrations with their bosses, the local county commissions that hire them. In doing a little checking since the meeting, I've found a lot of frustrations about county commissioners from the pros they've hired. The big problem is that many of the commissioners in rural America are either ag producers or small business people themselves. Many have expectations that a public administration should be run like a private business. Because of these expectations, commissioners think they can pretty much do whatever they want, within legal limits, to their employees. Whether it's fair or not is subject to conjecture in this early part of the 21st century. For example, I've heard of one small-town economic development director who had been successful in keeping a couple of local storefronts open, only to be fired because she came out as a lesbian. Petty arguments abound with commissioners about how these pros should go about working to save their small towns. The biggest one is the kind of business a county should go for. The other is whether or not a county should bring in a new business that will bring in "those people" to their counties. As one long-time county economic development chief--a good one--told me: "We are all pretty smart around here. Everybody knows when some company is out sniffing around an area looking at a possible place to relocate. You then find commissioners in some places wanting their people to get that new business, even if it would be out of their league to try for it. "There needs to be realistic expectations placed down, realizing the best thing to go for are hitting singles, so to speak, not swinging for home runs. Once they see a county is successful in bringing and keeping smaller companies, even those with just five to 10 jobs, a big employer can often see how they'll be treated and maybe take a look at that place." On hiring practices, the eco-devo dude told me that small-town America is going to have to more readily accept minorities if it is to be sustainable. "You may think this may bring problems," the pro said. "When you have fewer than 200 kids in your school system and a small dairy or feedlot opens to bring 20 jobs to the area, that's an average of 2.5 kids per family. You can keep your school open with 50 more kids spread out over the next few years. "Keeping the school means keeping lots of other things open. That means keeping a town alive." What I think is happening here is a real lack of professionalism among county commissioners across rural America. Originally, most commissioners' main jobs were to supervise county road maintenance. It's become a bigger job than ever. We see issues ranging from health care, law enforcement, and more come under the prevue of county commissioners. Competing interests of rural and urban residents are roaring in commission rooms, chambers and courts all across rural America. In many of the county seat towns, city councils and commissions have adopted the city manager form of government. It's time state governments call for counties to be led by strong executives, too. The job of running counties is too complex these days to have the frontier system of government many of them now use. This is particularly the case in the hiring of professionals to do jobs in positions such as economic development. Yes, hiring an executive is expensive, but can be offset by reducing the pay of commissioners and shortening their meetings. I've seen plenty of two-day "voucher stamping" meetings, in my previous incarnation as a city-county beat reporter, to realize that costs can be cut substantially by turning commissioners away from the multi-branch functions they take on and giving them to executives. Another bonus: shorter meetings. Instead of these all-day sessions, which have little public input, we can see more people in attendance and, more than likely, more people running for office--particularly people who have day jobs. Increasing the candidate pool can only increase democracy in small-town America. The frontier of America has long closed. It's time its form of governance changes to reflect the modern life of its people and to bring new vitality to the area. Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117, or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com.
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