County council

“ It shall be the duty of every county and district council, according to their respective powers, to keep all public works maintainable at the cost of their county or district in good condition and repair, and to take all steps necessary for that purpose. ”

“ County councils were organized in every county of each state and within most of the counties community councils, usually with the school district serving as the unit, were formed. These community councils were not committees, but were the community itself, with all its citizens and agencies organized for coöperative, effective, national service. It was a neighborhood democracy made effective by organization and it established a direct means of reciprocal communication between the Government and the masses of the people. ”

“ The treasurer of the state shall, before the governor and council, give sufficient security to the secretary of the state, in behalf of the general assembly; and each high sheriff, before the first judge of the county court, to the treasurer of their respective counties, previous to their respectively entering upon the execution of their offices, in such manner, and in such sums as shall be directed by the Legislature. ”

“ It is apparent that the city people have much more control over the county government than the election of the Commissioners Court would indicate. Many of the county functions which most concern the city, for example, tax assessment and collection, are under the jurisdiction of officials elected by the county at large. ”

“ The laws underlying the organization of the county government have not been changed; but there has grown up, quite outside the statute books and outside the court house itself, a second government that has supplied the great lack in the official, legal one, the lack of a definite head. The new factor in the county’s affairs has come to exercise the powers of an executive. Theoretically the people have elected his heads of departments; practically he has chosen them himself. The people have retained the forms while he has arrogated to himself the substance of political power. ”

“ Nowhere does the record state that because the people elected long strings of officers, the people therefore controlled those officers. All the while the services which government could render have become more and more numerous and the public needs of the people more pressing. And all the while too, the filling and holding of office for office sake has been vested with exaggerated importance, so that the county more perhaps than any other civil division has been the home of fictitious political “issues.” ”

“ Administration apart from fiscal supervision in other departments, such as charities, prisons and public health, has advanced much more slowly than reform in the fields which have been mentioned. But every indication for the future is toward greater control through accounting and supervision. The county acts locally in the enforcement of state obligations. The real trouble comes when one undertakes, arbitrarily, to place any given county activity in the local or state category. ”

“ When population shifts required that some towns receive a greater portion of seats on the county legislature, Rockland County responded with a plan that substantially remedies the malapportionment and that, by preserving an exact correspondence between each town and one of the county legislative districts, continues to encourage town supervisors to serve on the county board. ”

“ The county is small enough to serve as a convenient unit for assessment operations and assessment records and furnishes the basis of a system of fewer units than if the town were the basis. Under the county plan, moreover, there are fewer opportunities for communities to compete against each other in their effort to escape their just share of the general burden of government. It is significant that most of the western states have seen the advantages [Pg 126] of the county as the local unit of administration. ”

“ But there are also the county offices. Besides the judicial positions, altogether honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving liberal compensation, there are in each county an average of fifteen other officials, making in the State, in round numbers, one thousand. These, again, may be multiplied by four: there are certainly three waiting aspirants for each place. But ascend now to the State system, with its several executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and penal institutions and the appointments in the gift of the governor. ”

“ Through their officers, the people of the township act freely together within the lawful sphere of the township. The common wants of the township are attended to by the people through their officers, who compose the centre around which all township action revolves.
A number of townships, having common wants, are erected into a county. The county officers and county court form the harmonizing centre of this larger organization.
A number of counties, having common wants, are erected into a State, with a State government. ”

“ The prevailing practice of local election of officers and its logical sequence, local nullification, have done much to obscure the real interests of the state at the county court house, till the average run of citizens have long forgotten that the distinction exists; that officers like the sheriff, district attorney, public administrator and coroner are not strictly local officers at all but subordinates of the general state government. ”

“ If the county board, as in colonial Virginia, perpetuates itself, or is appointed otherwise than by popular vote, it is not strictly a representative board, in the modern sense of the phrase; the government is a kind of oligarchy. If, as in colonial Pennsylvania, and in the United States generally to-day, the county board consists of officers elected by the people, the county government is a representative democracy. The township government, on the other hand, as exemplified in New England and in the northwestern states which have adopted it, is a pure democracy. ”

“ And so, county government everywhere was conceived in a spirit of negation. The people elect their boards of supervisors or county commissioners, hoping thereby to keep their fingers on the public purse through direct agents. The supervisors, in their turn, undertake to regulate the finances of the sheriff, the district attorney, the county clerk and the rest. But, lo, these officers are no subordinates of theirs; they are the people’s humble servants. The supervisors may set out upon a program of economy and efficiency, including, let us say, the standardization of supplies. ”

“ What the state government actually does when it regulates or supervises is to hold up the county official to standards of performance. This is the proper work of officers or boards in the administrative branch. It relates not to what the county shall do as a matter of broad policy, but how the county shall redeem its obligation in matters of routine, detail and technique. The state agency may have only the power to “visit and inspect,” like the New York State Board of Charities, or it may, like the Comptroller of the same state, actually impose forms of procedure. ”

“ Instead of working as now through alien instruments in the person of independent officials, it will control the operating mechanism of the county, which will be of its own selection. Shall we take away from the people the power to choose the sheriffs, the county clerk, the surveyor, the superintendent of the poor? Yes, take away the selection, but reinforce their control. Abandon the separation of powers? Yes, do away with the three-ring (or perhaps twelve- or twenty-ring) circus, and get down to the serious business of government. ”

“ But everywhere the people have waived the right or privilege of a logical government when they have illogically insisted upon selecting their officers locally. When the district attorney, for instance, is chosen by the electors of the county he may be legally the state’s representative but he is practically a local officer in very much the same sense as the mayor. ”

“ All other officers, whose election or appointment is not provided for by this constitution, and all officers whose offices may hereafter be created by law, shall be elected by the people, or appointed as the legislature may direct. Nothing in this section shall prevent the transfer in whole or in part, of the functions of any town or village officer to any county officer, or the transfer in whole or in part of the function of any county officer to any town or village officer. ”

“ On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to the Home Minister from the governor's decision. The county head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the functions falling within the competence of the county assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the same position that the county head-man holds towards a county assembly. ”

“ But neither of these dignitaries has or had any powers of appointment comparable to, let us say, those of the mayor of Cleveland or of New York. In the general run of counties, [Pg 41] the executive is not a single officer but the governing board itself. Where the “town plan” is in vogue, as in certain Illinois counties, and throughout New York State, this body may be very large and unwieldy and is wholly incapable of supervising administrative detail, except through small committees, with the added division of responsibility which that implies. ”

“ Where the pure town system prevails the county plays but little part in local administration, and in some States like Rhode Island there are, strictly speaking, no county officers, the county being merely a judicial district without corporate personality. ”

“ Striking out the provision authorizing county treasurer to appoint an attorney. Regulating tax collection procedure. Fixing compensation of unskilled laborers. Correcting 1915 tax roll. Creating a county auditor. Increasing salary of sheriff, etc. Levy of taxes to meet cost of sanitary trunk sewer. Regulating management of penitentiary and workhouse. Creating commissioner of charities.
Too often the motive of the legislators has not [Pg 117] been to make the county the state’s more obedient servant, but to “bleed” it to the utmost for political purposes. ”

“ A board of fifteen freeholders is elected, either in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by three fifths of the members of the board of supervisors, or of a petition signed by [Pg 147] fifteen per centum of the qualified electors of the county, computed upon the total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for governor at the last preceding gubernatorial election. Within one hundred and twenty days from the time their election is declared the board of freeholders must prepare and cause to be published a charter for the government of the county. ”

“ An important function of the local voters is the decision under the local-option system that prevails in the East, as to whether the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be licensed for the ensuing year; under an increasing referendum policy the acts of the State legislature are frequently submitted for review to the local voters.
Where the town system does not exist or is part of a larger county, officers are elected for more extended responsibility. The functions of county officers are mainly judicial. ”

“ The members of the county boards will not follow the example of some of our present county commissioners and personally descend to the management of the details of administration. They will learn the art of delegating authority without losing control. And just as the people will have simplified their problem of citizenship by concentrating their attention on the governing group, so the representative body will focus administrative responsibility in a chief subordinate. ”

“ Members of the county board of supervisors must be elected, but not necessarily by districts. All other county officers, except the superior court judges, may be either elective or appointive in a manner set forth in a county charter. ”

“ With a combination of a structure of government designed to fix general responsibility, an administrative procedure designed to let daylight into public business and an administrative personnel free to serve the interests of the public, the people of the county will be in a position to just about get what they want, within the measure of power granted to the locality under the laws of the state. ”

“ Whatever tribunal, or officers, may be created by the General Assembly for the transaction of county matters, shall be uniform throughout the State, and of the same name, jurisdiction, and remedies, except that the General Assembly may provide for County Commissioners in any county, may abolish the office of County Treasurer in any county, may fix the compensation of County Treasurers, and may consolidate the offices of Tax Receiver and Tax Collector into the office of Tax Commissioner, and may fix his compensation, without respect to uniformity. ”

“ Where the township government is strong, as in New England, it takes the place of county government. Where people live in cities, they look to the city government to serve them rather than to the county government. In rural districts the people have come more and more to look to the state and national governments for such service as they expect government to give. ”

“ PURPOSES.--The county organization brings justice near the people, enables them to attend to local affairs too extensive for a smaller community, and affords a medium by which they may transact business with the State. It serves as a convenient basis of apportioning members of the legislature among the people. It maintains local officers, such as sheriff and prosecuting attorney, whose duties would be too narrow if confined to a township. It secures a competent and higher tribunal than the justice's court for the trial of suits at law. ”