New council members jump in feet first

Our view: Alexander, Neid will become more effective with experience

New Glencoe City Council members Milan Alexander and Cory Neid proved Tuesday night that they are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
While it’s gratifying to see that they are not afraid to challenge the status quo, a lot of confusion and possibly hard feelings could have been avoided at their first meeting if they had a little more experience and knowledge before the meeting.
While choosing a council vice president and appointing commission members are important, they are not as critical as one would think at first blush. One must remember that the vice president’s power is merely to lead meetings in the absence of the mayor. We’re sure that Alexander can fill that role, particularly after watching current Mayor Randy Wilson’s deftness in that job.
And the new council members need to remember that the city’s committees and commissions are advisory. They make recommendations to the City Council; they do not actually set policies or change ordinances themselves.
It would have been nice to see a new face on the planning commission, as that particular body often serves as a testing ground — and provides a learning curve — for those who are considering a future role on the City Council, but who are not sure they want to take the plunge yet.
Unfortunately, there has been a long-standing vacancy on the planning commission, and former Council Member Kevin Dietz has offered to fill that position. He’ll bring the knowledge and experience he gained as a City Council member to that role, and we feel he will serve the community well.
We hope the City Council focuses on more important matters in the future, in particular storm drainage and funding for street and utility improvements.
One of the main reasons the City Council has two new members now is that residents seem to be alarmed by the assessments that are being levied on property owners in connection with the recent street projects.
Unfortunately, state statute says that a city must assess at least 20 percent of the costs of a project if it chooses that as a funding mechanism. City council members in all communities need to challenge their state legislators to change that stipulation. One would think that our local legislators would be amenable to that, since they have a healthy aversion to federal and state governments meddling in local issues.
And the whole storm drainage issue is going to take a huge amount of time and effort, since so many entities are involved.
Let’s put January’s rough start aside and try to come together to resolve some of these issues going forward.