The County Line
- Convention Issue 2006
"If it's not good for every county, then it's not good for any county."
The words could have been spoken in Florence , Alexander City or Chatom. And, the speaker could have been a County Commissioner from Carrollton , Eufaula, Scottsboro or a nywhere else in Alabama .
“If it’s not good for every county, then it’s not good for any county.”
Pretty darn good words for us to live by as we prepare for what is certain to be a most challenging legislative year.
“If it’s not good for every county, th en it’s not good for any county.”
Pretty darn good words for us to be sharing with the new crop of County Commissioners that will be assuming office in early November and attending the Orientation and Legislative Conference a month later.
“If it’s not go od for every county, then it’s not good for any county.”
Pretty darn good words for us to use when explaining the importance of working with our affiliate organizations and strengthening county government from the inside out.
“If it’s not good for every county, then it’s not good for any county.”
Pretty darn good words for us all. Period.
County government in Alabama has reached a number of its goals over the last few years because this all-for-one and one-for-all theme has guided almost every action we have taken. We’ve watched county officials and employees dedicate countless hours on activities that worked to benefit other counties even more than the area in which they were elected.
This theme has certainly put a smile on the face of the Association staff members. But, it is not something for which we can pat ourselves on the back. The Association members have created this environment and have demanded this kind of “teamwork” from each other so long that it is almost second nature.
The hard work on d evising a plan for purchasing, installing and utilizing the new voting equipment this year is a great example. The two persons in county government who probably worked the hardest on the statewide approach to this issue – Lee County Commission Chairman and Probate Judge Bill English and Lawrence County Probate Judge Rip Proctor – could have certainly walked the road alone and provided election equipment in their own backyards with less time, effort and high blood pressure.
But, they chose to spend many hou rs working through the Association’s mechanism to devise an approach – and then to insist that it was followed – to ensure that all counties stood together in a way that would be much more beneficial than anything any one county could have accomplished alone.
There are dozens of other examples that could be cited, just in the last 12 months. That’s just the way we do business in county government. Thankfully, that’s at least how we do business today.
Every couple of years when it comes time to welcome a n ew crop of County Commissioners , we always wonder if the group will take up the baton being placed on the ground by those who are leaving office ahead of them. There’s no doubt that the Association is losing a number of its strongest and most active leader s.
From a personal standpoint, it is the most difficult thing to accept in this job. These officials have worked side-by-side with the staff for years and by mid-November they will have stepped aside. And, it will be someone else’s turn.
The success of t he Association and, more directly, the success of county government’s daily labor to improve life on the local level depend on the replacement of those departing leaders. Newly-elected County Commissioners usually do not realize the importance of being a p art of a statewide “team” and working for the common good as a way to ensure their success on the local level. But, we always trust that they will learn pretty fast.
A few years ago, the Association developed a long-range plan, outlining a list of almost 40 goals that should be achieved in the coming years. Most of those have been met through the hard work and leadership of county officials who often placed the need for statewide changes ahead of how one individual issue might impact their county.
In that time county government has changed in Alabama . Issues like economic development, financial accountability, efficiency in government, responsiveness to the public’s outcry for additional services have replaced discussions of the size of a bulldozer that th e County Commission might purchase next year.
It is now time to begin the establishment of new goals and new plans for reaching those goals with a new group of County Commissioners whose hard work will be the key to our success. As we do, we should keep i n mind the comments of Dan Hall, a county commissioner from rural northern Ohio, who gave us all some pretty darn good advice a few weeks ago during a meeting in Columbus.
“If it’s not good for every county, then it’s not good for any county.”
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