A confession
The year was 1987. A resolution was brought before the Street Committee to take over maintenance of the County Roads within the City Limits. The idea was promoted by the Street Superintendent and City Engineer with th idea that the funds received from the State to maintain those roads would be an economic benefit to the City. The resolution passed the Street Committee and City Council unanimously.
Time passed.
The economic benefits did not pan out.
Council members who were there in 1987 were no longer there in 2008.
A new City Administrator and Mayor who were not around in 1987 looked at the situation and couldn’t understand why their City paid for the maintenance of County Roads in their City and other Cities didn’t. Questions were asked … with no definitive answers. Tempers sometimes flared. Lawsuits were discussed. It got ugly.
Then it was discovered what had happened in 1987. The resolution. That is why the County no longer maintained the roads within the City.
Why do I bring up this story? I was the Mayor in 1987 that presided over that meeting where the City Council absolved the County of road maintenance duties.
I was quickly asked by some …
What did I know and when did I know it?
Why didn’t I say something about that resolution when I clearly knew the issue was being discussed?
My answer …
Hey, it was twenty one years ago. I don’t remember every decision that was made by the City Council twenty one years ago. I sure wish I did. I wish I had remembered that resolution I most certainly would have stepped up before the ugly discussion of lawsuits was bantered about. But, I didn’t remember.
The lesson to be learned?
No matter how innocuous an issue may seem ( after all the two city experts in the field were both recommending passage) if proper questioning of an issue is not fully done, it can come back to haunt you even more than twenty years later.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 11:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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