Committees

I'm often surprised by the names of Committees in the House or Senate. This morning CSPAN is repeating a press conference with Rep George Miller (D-CA), incoming chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee. We haven't heard enough recently from this Committee, whose slogan, if not mission, is Protecting the Interests of Students, Workers, and Retirees. Committee structure, like budget structure, reflects what we think is important enough to command our time or money.

The next Town Board meeting, Friday January 5, 2007, is an organizational meeting. Many ritual actions required by Municipal law will be taken. Check out the minutes of last year's meeting to see what I mean.

Nearly the last item on the agenda will be the Supervisor's appointments. Of the ten committees listed in last year's minutes, five never met and most of the others only met once in 2006. Given that committees are where the work underlying policy decisions should be taking place I think this is a problem.

So, I'm planning to put together some suggestions for a but more rational committee structure and some goal setting ideas. Anyone want to make suggestions?