Wednesday, November 7, 2001
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Wednesday, November 7, 2001 |
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No place for personal agendas in these talks To the members of the Association of Fayette County Governments: Do we want to be competitors, or are we going to cooperate? Are some entities going to go their own way and let the rest of us pick up the pieces and deal with the results or are we going to try to work together to keep this community a special place? I think that these questions are some of the most important questions facing elected officials in Fayette County today. Tuesday night, Oct. 23, at the quarterly meeting of the Association of Fayette County Governments (which is made up of the County Commission, School Board, the five cities and our local state legislators), we were shown an example of one approach to these questions. I would like to suggest that we look at another approach. On that Tuesday, the approach taken was: prepare a detailed presentation with slides and charts that is intended to get YOUR point across and don't give those who have a different view on an issue an opportunity to prepare their information. This approach tries to steamroller your opposition and to stampede those in attendance, who might not be familiar with the facts, into supporting your viewpoint. Fortunately, even though the presentation was very well done and the information included seemed to make the one viewpoint almost a "no-brainer," most of those in attendance were able to see this effort as what it really was and to understand that there is another view of the issue. Our community is under pressure. We have real issues to address. What type of development occurs and how much, where and when it occurs. Regionalism and the potential loss of control over our future that it can bring. These impact our schools, transportation, public safety and our overall quality of life. We still have an opportunity to achieve a good outcome. But, we risk giving it all away if we insist on seeing only our own, short-term interests. I would like to respectfully request that we place on the agenda for the next meeting of the AFCG a discussion on how we should address issues in the future and about how we should address, and treat, each other. This is an issue that must be settled. If the point of view of those who believe that we should ambush, embarrass and harass each other prevails, then we can anticipate the same fate for the AFCG as befell the FUTURES Committee and we can predict the nature of the service delivery negotiations scheduled for next year. I would like to hope that the citizens of our cities and of our county demand that we conduct our discussions on real issues and not on personal agendas, animosities and vendettas. I hope that they take the opportunity of all elections to make their point. I hope that they send this message: You people are elected to look after OUR interests, if you can't refrain from your personal agendas, please keep them off the front pages and out of your official meetings and discussions. Peter Pfeifer Fayette County Commissioner
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