MONTICELLO – It was one of two key recommendations of the last Charter Revision Commission, ten months ago. Now, it won’t happen.
The Sullivan County Legislature rejected a long-debated plan to implement staggered terms, instead of having all nine seats on the ballot every four years. That came on a unanimous vote, with one legislator absent, during the monthly Executive Committee meeting today.
Legislator Scott Samuelson, who had leaned in favor of the proposal said after some research and rethinking, he things this would go against some good history.
“I just read this morning, Charter Commission notes from 2007 where this was discussed in 2007, and it was no done then for I think all the same reasons that we’re talking about now.”
Samuelson said wat was said, in essence, by a member of last year’s commission, Ken Walter, that this is an attempt to fix something that is not broken.
Samuelson said it would complicate things for Sullivan County voters.
“There’s a lot of things that are impacted by it. It’s going to be complicated for people remembering when their legislators are going to be elected. There are issues when part of this board is up for re-election when you are trying to do business. We all know what happens when we are trying to do business in an election year. No matter what you try to do, it’s complicated.”
No argument from legislator Joseph Perrello.
“Maybe the way we do it now is the right way to do it,” Perrello said.
Legislators thanked County Attorney Cheryl McCausland for the many hours she put in, trying to put the proposal into acceptable legal form. The other major charter commission recommendation was for an elected county executive. That never got out of the starting block.
