Changing County Government

[Don Coombs <dcoombs@uidaho.edu>]

The discussion of whether we should change our form of county government,
as conducted over vision2020, seems to me to justify the existence of
vision 2020. Everybody who has entered into the fray either had a serious
question or a solid answer.

I think people are right to think there may be problems with the new
proposal. But we KNOW there are problems with the old system, and serious
ones.

Having a board set policy to be followed by a professional administrator
is accepted as the obvious way to go with the City of Moscow and with the
local school district. Nobody seems to be proposing to elect the
superintendent of schools or the police chief, and I fail to see why the
business of Latah County is all that different from the business of Moscow
or the school district. Both the city and the school district have more
than three people on their boards, and I believe more than three for the
county would be desirable, but the proposed system should work with three.

So yes, after following the discussion on vision2020, I think it's time
to support the proposal for change.

Don H. Coombs