What is a Commissioner's Job?

A lesson for the new Commissioners; an admittedly too late refresher for others

I’ve been meeting with the likely new commissioners and giving my views and recommendations on successfully holding this position. While I’m confident they will do it right, I wanted to reaffirm these views in light of recent narratives about exactly what a commissioner’s job is and where our focus truly should be.

As a County Commissioner, our job is unique. It’s a 24/7 position that requires us to understand the concerns, issues and desires of all citizens of Manatee County. To do this properly, we must really get a feel for these needs. We must understand macro issues that affect us all every day and also understand what’s worked, and what hasn’t, in other counties and throughout the country to ensure we’re putting best-practices into place locally.

There are some commissioners that believe this is a 9-5 job - best performed by sitting behind four security doors in their top floor office pushing papers while waiting for citizens to make appointments to come see them.

There are commissioners that believe looking productive is more important than being productive.

They’ll boast about “being in the office” or they’ll pop by an event to snap a quick picture for social media before running back to their desk. These are the ones that never propose actual policy or, if they do, can’t articulate it well enough to get the votes to move it forward because they haven’t taken the time to understand the real-world impacts of these proposals.

This job is not about “office hours”. It’s about “community hours”. It’s about seeing and feeling the issues that affect our community. It’s about hearing a concern, seeing a problem and then working to create a solution. That can’t be done from behind closed doors; so, having your office inaccessible for a few weeks should not, and does not, affect your ability to do your job. I would argue, it only forces you to do it better.

Don’t sit and think about how to work with the fire districts. Go out and visit the departments. Don’t wait for someone to update you on the status of an EMS contract. Get out and visit stations, speak with employees, understand the real issues and then propose the real solutions. Don’t sit home and complain about a recovery effort; go out, get your hands dirty and help with that recovery.

Have your water meeting at the dam. Have your tourism meeting at the convention center. Don’t wait for people to set up meetings in your fancy office; go out and meet with their groups, their associations; their communities to see their concerns firsthand. Make yourself accessible. Then, make an effort to use this knowledge to propose thoughtful, beneficial policies for the good of our county.

I have personally floated the idea of abandoning our 9th floor offices all together. I believe them to be a waste of money and a waste of space in an otherwise crowded building. I’d rather set up a few small co-work/conference type spaces throughout the county, maybe at existing libraries, to get us all closer to the citizens and closer to the real issues. We’d be easier to access by avoiding having people make the trek downtown and through the gauntlet of security for a brief meeting. I’m sure we can all find someplace else to display our ribbon cutting pictures.

Regardless of where our offices are, however, the actual job of a commissioner is to learn the issues, research policies and move our county forward. The real job is done in the field. It’s not done in the office and it’s certainly not done on the dais.

Last week, the Board of County Commissioners decided to adjust the posted meeting schedule for the upcoming month. Some people claim this is unheard of and “has never been done before”. We actually cancelled multiple meetings throughout this year for FAC events, an affordable housing conference and other conflicts. Conducting a BOCC meeting is the culmination of the job; not the job itself. It’s where we finalize the discussions and vote on policy that should have been fully vetted and time-consumingly researched before we sit behind our name plates. While it’s admittedly the public-facing portion of our job, it’s a small fraction of the actual job itself if you’ve done your job correctly.

Holding a BOCC meeting requires taxpayer funded mobilization of METV and deputies. It requires all staff that may be involved in each and every agenda item to be available and away from their jobs. It requires time that can be better spent if the meeting is not necessary. We shouldn’t hold meetings just because they were arbitrarily placed on a draft calendar twelve months prior. We should hold them when we have necessary policy discussions of interest to the public. Typically, these fall twice a month; but holding short, consent-only meetings just because it’s on the calendar is a poor use of time and resources when they can be otherwise consolidated.

We also have to be cognizant of the nature of the meetings and the make-up of the board. If it’s argued that meetings are necessary to debate future policy, then the board in the debate should have a vested interest in that future. As a non-chartered county, Manatee doesn’t swear in new board members until two Tuesdays after the election. Some other municipalities swear in their new members immediately. The City of Sarasota turns over the board on the Thursday immediately following the election; 36 hours after the results. This is more ideal as they avoid the lag between the citizens selecting their representatives and the time those representatives begin working for those citizens.

Two years ago, there was a regular BOCC meeting held during this post-election window. During that meeting, with three outgoing commissioners, votes were rushed through to modify the County Administrator’s contract, waive all diligence and close on a large land purchase and move a proclamation that they admitted was being pushed through before the new board took office. This biannual tradition of passing policy and saddling future boards with rushed decisions is no way to govern as you leave office. Neither is spending the last few meetings as a commissioner focused on disruption and the airing of grievances rather than professionally and gracefully representing the citizens.

Avoiding these potentially costly and unproductive meetings allows for time and resources to be better spent. A lack of meetings does not disrupt county operations, nor does it slow down the progress being made. It simply allows for efficiency and the acknowledgement of the citizen’s voted representation having a say in policy going forward.

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A commissioner’s job, and the impacts made on our community, is what we make of it. If you come into this position with a belief that you can sit behind a desk all day and focus all your policy-making efforts into debate at a public board meeting, you will have an unproductive four years (or possibly many more).

It may be believed that taxpayers are wasting money on your salary when you are not allowed to sit in your office or on your dais.

I believe taxpayers are wasting far more than money when you are.

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Come November 22, you will get to decide what type of commissioner you want to be. I know from our conversations that each of you will perform your duties the right way. I look forward to NOT seeing you around the office; but rather out in our respective communities.

Make the right choice and let’s get some work done for Manatee County!