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Editorials
New chairman, new members, new era? : Editorials : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisNew chairman, new members, new era?
| 12/13/2012
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It's no longer your father's Kendall County Board. With the swearing-in last week of five new members and the election of a new chairman, John Shaw of Yorkville, the county board is poised to begin a new era.
The last several years have been challenging and, at times, extremely difficult for county government as the board has dealt with a host of controversial issues, including landfill proposals, budget deficits, expansion of county facilities and employee pay raises.
Over the past few years, county government's relations with the county's municipalities have been strained, due in large part to a disagreement over funding for KenCom, the emergency 911 dispatching system that serves most county municipalities. That disagreement eventually prompted the municipalities to file a lawsuit against the county in circuit court. This meant that taxpayers in the municipalities were paying the legal bills for their respective communities as they sued the county. Meanwhile the same taxpayers were also helping to pay for the county's legal expenses as they defended the suit. By the time the lawsuit was dropped in October 2011, taxpayers had paid more than $20,000 in legal bills.
Shaw indicated to our reporter, Matt Schury, that he is aware of the current divide between the county and municipalities and would like to mend some fences.
"I'd like to get everybody in the county kind of on the same page," Shaw told Schury.
We're hopeful the board's nine other newly sworn-in members will also want to rebuild some bridges with the municipalities.
In the final analysis, both county government and the municipalities exist to provide necessary services to taxpayers. County and municipal officials should keep that foremost in mind as they go about setting policies for their respective agencies. Instead of protecting political turfs, they should strive to find ways they can work together to provide the best services possible to all taxpayers at the lowest cost. The last thing taxpayers need at this time is to end up paying the legal bills for both sides in any more lawsuits.
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