Quiggle Takes It To 'Em

" I believe that with . . . changes in leadership, Lee County will be right back on track for a positive future."

John Quiggle was elected by a vote of 4-2 to the board of commissioners with all four votes coming from the democrat majority. Apparently that was where their congeniality ended because Quiggle did not like what he saw on the board of commissioners. At least that is the inescapable conclusion of this Take 5 segment in Saturday's paper. (Click here to read the full article-courtesy of the Herald).

The picture he paints is of a board operated by "the majority leader" --a likely reference to Commissioner Robert Rieves"-- in a manner that is caught up in a paradigm of control rather than leadership:

This has been somewhat difficult. It has also been very difficult to simply get the board to talk issues through as a group, in a professional manner, instead of one commis­sioner speaking for the majority and then moving on. (read post about Quiggle's attempt to have a discussion with the board.)To lead, the commissioners need to be really concerned with the county’s vision and understand where the county is going and how it is going to get there. That task seems to get lost in the details of rela­tively petty matters.

His contrast of the board of education as a board involved in policy making and of the commissioners as a board concerned primarily with money is more than an interesting civics lesson. It perhaps goes to the heart of the difficultly the board of education has had dealing with the board of commissioners. Here Quiggle comes down hard on the side of the board of education:

It’s not the duty of the commissioners to tell each and every entity receiving county money how to spend it. Part of showing leadership in a position on the board of commissioners is allow­ing the groups we fund through county dollars to manage their areas of expertise and let them do their jobs.

The picture painted by Quiggle is one of a board that is not open to ideas, that defers significantly to a finance committee chaired by Robert Rieves, and is too caught up in the details to see the big picture.

It is clear that Quiggle comes from the policy making board. The notion of a board of commissioners having committees, perhaps including citizens, actually working on vision, policy, and goals is really an intrinquing concept. Maybe, if as Quiggle says. "we get new leadership."