This article was first published in 2008 in the Circuit Engineering District #4 newsletter authored by Matt Goodson.
Last month, in this publication, an article discussed the importance of funds that can be used for road and bridge maintenance work. That article cited a case study that showed New York City was spending around 400 million dollars annually to construct bridges when all of the cities bridges could be maintained for 150 million dollars annually. This month, we would like to discuss how those types of decisions are made and how it relates to your districts county road system.
It is probably safe to assume that in the above New York City example the 400 million dollars that were spent on the city’s bridge construction program were partially a result of politics. This being in contrast to the 150 million that could have been spent to maintain the bridges in near pristine condition…that action, if enacted, could have been classified as sound governance. Why was the least expensive and most logical decision abandoned for a more costly and unsustainable program? Was it political favor? Was it poor judgment? Or was it the lack of a system that provided sound governance with minimal politics?
In our nation, in some form or fashion, we divide our government oversight into local, state, and federal levels. By nature, as you move away from the local level, the oversight by the people (our bosses) becomes more diluted. Even at the Circuit Engineering District level, even though we work for and are part of our counties, we are not as “tied” to the people we serve. We do not know most of them personally and except in the place, we live our lives are not directly affected by our decisions. However, if you are an elected county commissioner or county employee your work is critiqued every day the very people who will decide if you get to keep your job. Quite frankly, that is a strong motivator that governance takes precedence over politics.
The constituencies of our counties expect, on a daily basis, that the county commissions maintain, throughout the whole county, their roads in an acceptable manner, and, have proven at the polls that they will demand acceptable performance.
Today’s political buzz word is accountability. Some school of thoughts believes that if we remove the elected officials from the road building decision process then our road system will improve because “politics” have been removed. However, politics is an action that is also practiced by non-elected individuals. When you remove or dilute the public’s voting oversight you have removed the motivator for sound governance. We recommend that careful thought is given to any action that does not maintain that the governing decisions remain with our local elected officials. If local governance is maintained, the public will assure accountability when they have lunch with you each and every day.