An executive versus a manager

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — The person most directly responsible for the day-to-day running of county government is county manager David Fanslau. Fanslau is appointed by the legislature, not elected by the voters.

Some officials in Sullivan County, as well as some other prominent people, believe county voters should have a chance to elect the person who makes the day-to-day decisions as is done in other counties such as Orange County. This would require switching from a county manager to a county executive.

The subject has come up again because Steve Wilkinson, chairman of the Sullivan County Democratic Committee and legislative director for Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, issued a press release on November 18 saying that a committee is being formed to look into the feasibility of getting the matter before the voters in the form of a referendum in November 2010.

The press release said, “Sullivan County voters should decide once and for all if we want to create the position of county executive; this issue should no longer be ignored.”

According to the release, the committee, which is headed by former legislator Sean Rieber, will reach out to Republicans, Conservatives and Independents, in order to make the process bipartisan.

It’s an option that has been broached in the past, and not one that is particularly appealing to county chairman Jonathan Rouis. He said, “Eighteen to 24 months ago, the charter commission, which was empanelled to look at our charter and all its options, debated that issue substantially, and it was a hot issue of contention. They came back that it was not financially or operationally feasible for the county at this time. It’s something that should be taken up during the next charter commission, which is mandated every 10 years.”

One reason for the opposition is that a county’s executive office would require new staff that would be specifically assigned to the office, such as a communications officer, an attorney and others and, during this time of economic distress, the county can ill afford this choice.

But the idea has support from lawmaker David Sager because a county executive would be responsible to all of the voters of the county and, in his view, not just answerable to the members of the majority party that effectively choose the county manager.

Lawmaker Alan Sorensen said the concerns raised by the Democratic committee in their press release point to a record of bad decisions under the Democratically controlled legislature. “A county manager system in and of itself is not necessarily a bad system. Unfortunately, due to the lack of leadership at the county level, it probably has become a bad system for us and we should look at alternatives and give the public an alternative to have input.”