‘Mystery member’ may mean boards too big
Comments (...)An SVM reporter’s column this week about county boards was instructive in more ways than one.
The reporter wrote about his attempt to learn the identity of a Whiteside County Board member he didn’t know. The mystery man sat in the back row at meetings; he and the reporter had not been introduced.
So, the reporter approached four county board members that he did know, quietly pointed out the mystery man, and asked them who he was.
They didn’t know, either.
Hmm.
It’s true that county boards in our area are among the largest in the state, member-wise.
Whiteside County has 27 members on its board. Lee has even more – 28. Ogle has 26. So does Bureau.
Carroll, the smallest county in the region, has 15 people on its board.
With so many people doing duty on boards, maybe those four Whiteside County Board members queried by the reporter have an excuse for not knowing a fellow member’s name.
It also could be an indication that the size of the county board is too large.
To their credit, two area county boards decided to trim their size; the changes take effect after the November election. Lee will shrink from 28 to 24 members; Carroll slims down from 15 to nine.
That’s a positive development.
When you think about it, though, county government – born in the 19th century – ought to consider taking more than baby steps into the 21st century.
That’s the position of author Richard C. Longworth, who wrote “Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.”
Longworth points to the abundance of counties in Midwestern states – Illinois has 102 – as a big reason that the region remains so fragmented.
The organizational template worked well in the 1800s when transportation was by horse and buggy, communication was primitive, and government needed to be hyperlocal.
Today, transportation and communication are rapid, yet Illinois is left with nearly 7,000 units of government – the most in the nation – including those 102 counties.
That could explain why the state struggles to find solutions to problems through a regional approach.
A reorganization of government along the lines of 21st-century needs might be difficult politically, but it would make sense, and it should be attempted.
A good start would be with Illinois’ 102 county governments.
Back to that mystery man on the Whiteside board. SVM’s reporter found out his name: Ken Roeder, a Democrat from Fulton.
Which leads us to wonder, how many citizens, if asked to identify their representatives on the county board, would know?
We’ll leave that mystery for another time.
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