It's enormously challenging for a new mayor, county judge or president to take the reins of government and make a smooth transition into office, especially when the departing executive is a member of a different party than the incoming one.
We have no doubt there will be hiccups, to put it kindly, in the change from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, if nothing else perhaps a few missing "D's" and "T's" from computer keyboards in the White House. But it's been encouraging to hear the president's pledges to do everything possible to smooth the path as Republicans -- or at least what passes as Republican in the world of Donald Trump -- sweep into the executive offices, displacing thousands of Democrats who, until November, had been ensconced in their certainty of at least four more years of a Democratic presidency. That didn't work out.
What’s the point?
Newly elected county judges are bound to make personnel and structural changes to put their vision of leadership into place. Communicating that to their constituents is vital.
At the federal level, such a transition is a gargantuan task. But across the country, smaller versions are happening in local government. In both Benton and Washington counties, residents are watching as new chief executives take over at the county courthouses.
Barry Moehring is Benton County's new top administrator. In his case, it's no change of party, but he did defeat the incumbent in last spring's primary. He's come into office with specific changes in mind, chief among them a new approach to decision-making about managing the county's road improvements and maintenance. Experience as a justice of the peace on the Quorum Court has no doubt eased his move to the full-time role, but he nonetheless came in ready for change. He eliminated two top positions in emergency management and combined those duties in a new public safety administrator, for which he hired Saline County's director of emergency services. In the process, Moehring has detailed the changes and explained why he's making them.
That's a contrast to what's happening in Washington County, where Joseph Wood became the first Republican to hold the county judge post in decades. He's taking over from a Democrat whose tenure unquestionably had its rough spots. So changes among department heads in Washington County shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, either.
It has been harder in Washington County to see Wood's vision as he fired four department heads. He said he was building a better team that will improve county services, but specifics have been harder to come by. He used a four-member "transition team" to interview and make recommendations about 17 department heads. An employee who coordinated Quorum Court activities and had been with the county since 1979 quit, saying Wood was listening to people "who have no knowledge of county operations or ordinance requirements" and wasn't doing what he promised.
Wood hired his campaign manager to fill that post.
A justice of the peace from Wood's own party described the transition as "unusually volatile."
The former county judge's chief of staff, who was county attorney for 32 years, claimed county policies required Wood to advertise the positions he was filling, but Wood's new county attorney, former GOP judicial candidate Brian Lester, said that's not the case since the positions were never technically "open." That's an explanation only a lawyer can appreciate.
Another GOP candidate, Dwight Gonzales, is Wood's choice for building maintenance supervisor. Gonzales ran for state representative in Fayetteville but could not unseat the Democratic incumbent.
Lester, responding to a reporter's request for resumes of these new public employees, didn't produce them and said the county may not have kept them.
As we noted, transitions are naturally periods of change that can be uncomfortable. But if Wood's replacements are part of a team that will make county government better, wouldn't he want to shout their qualifications from the rooftop? Wouldn't his government have at least a basic resume in hand before hiring someone?
It's no problem that Wood is instituting changes within the top personnel he'll expect to get things done for county taxpayers. That's the way these things go. But amid criticism, Wood should attempt to be the best salesman for the changes he's making, giving Washington County constituents as much insight as possible in what the changes portend in affecting the kinds of changes to county government he wants.
Wood and Moehring are just a couple of weeks into their terms, which we hope will be successful for the sake of the people they represent. In time, we hope the transitional changes will settle in, questions will be answered and the focus of county government can be fixed on serving the people exceptionally well.
Commentary on 01/16/2017