County board discusses "transparency" in its actions

Monday's discussion of a new winter road maintenance policy transitioned into a discussion of an issue that has been raised in this year's county board election campaigns--whether the county board is "transparent" enough in its actions.

Current supervisors defend the actions of the board as being open to the public.  But Democratic supervisor Bill Ibanez on Monday objected that the county board was being asked to vote on a winter road maintenance policy that the public hadn't been given an adequate chance to read.

The notice of Monday's public hearing stated that a new winter road maintenance policy would be discussed.  But Ibanez, while pointing out he was just raising the issue as a case study of how the county board does business and not as a criticism of the County Engineer's Office, stated that he had not seen a copy of the new winter road maintenance policy until just before the county board meeting--and wondered how the public could have learned about it in time to appear at Monday's public hearing.

In the end, the other four supervisors defended the handling of the public hearing, but they agreed to delay approval of the new policy and hold three readings of the ordinance in case members of the public wanted to attend either of the next two county board meetings to discuss road maintenance issues.