ACTION TO BE TAKEN AT WC LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE
On Monday October 23, 2006 the Winnebago County Board Legislative Committee will hear and consider a resolution calling for the repeal of the recent amendment dealing with County Board redistricting.
Mainly the statue enabled the County Board to reduce its size once between censuses either by the public or by action taken by the board itself. County Board Supervisors Lohry,O'Brien, Farrey, and Hotynski are bringing the resolution to the committee to be considered. Farrey and O'Brien were two of the supervisors who sponsored the resolution to cut the County Board by 2 in 2008 and trying to put a halt to the citizen effort to put a referendum on the ballot to reduce the county board by half of current size.
The meeting takes place Monday October 23, 2006 at 9 :00 AM at the James Coughlin Building located at 625 E. County Road Y in Oshkosh, WI.
Mainly the statue enabled the County Board to reduce its size once between censuses either by the public or by action taken by the board itself. County Board Supervisors Lohry,O'Brien, Farrey, and Hotynski are bringing the resolution to the committee to be considered. Farrey and O'Brien were two of the supervisors who sponsored the resolution to cut the County Board by 2 in 2008 and trying to put a halt to the citizen effort to put a referendum on the ballot to reduce the county board by half of current size.
The meeting takes place Monday October 23, 2006 at 9 :00 AM at the James Coughlin Building located at 625 E. County Road Y in Oshkosh, WI.
posted by Cheryl Hentz at 11:26 PM
1 Comments:
The first slap in the face was the Winnebago County Board arrogantly voting to reduce its own size by two, simply to thwart the efforts by a citizen action group to cut the 38 member board in half.
Now we have board supervisors who are backing a resolution asking the state legislature to repeal the law that allows citizens to reduce the board size through direct-legislation referendums, such as the one going on here in Winnebago County - though that group's efforts now will be mostly symbolic in nature with the board already having voted to cut itself.
One of the people supporting the resolution is newly-elected supervisor Donna Lohry. I'm sure Ms. Lohry believes her reasons are well-founded, but in an age when elected officials can hardly be trusted to police themselves and record numbers of them in Wisconsin have been convicted of crimes and are doing time in prisons or jails, this is hardly the time to tell people that they should have less of a voice in their government.
Still, the county's legislative committee approved the resolution 6-5 last week; it now goes to the full county board in November and if it passes there will move on to the Wisconsin Counties Association for consideration by its members and eventually be sent on to the state legislature. If it ever makes it as far as Madison, I predict it will fail. After all, the law is still relatively new and, as such, only in the earlier stages of being tested. I doubt seriously the legislature, no matter how arrogant even it can be, would second guess itself to repeal what it only recently passed.
In the meantime, those Winnebago County Board members who supported cutting the size by two and who are in support of this resolution should take note that citizens are increasingly becoming fed up with the arrogance of and seemingly lack of respect toward them by elected officials, and start being more responsive to the demands of their public rather than being motivated by their own job security and personal wishes.
- Cheryl
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