“I need to go someplace because I’ve not had training at all for this council.” Well, Councilwoman Greene, you introduced yourself in campaign fashion to me and my wife on election day outside our polling place. The fact you had no training or experience was not your “vote for me pitch.” Suddenly, now that training is taxpayer funded and at a resort location, you decide to use your inexperience as an excuse for taxpayer funded luxury hotels and fine dining? I don’t think so. If you feel you’re not capable of serving on the council because of your lack of knowledge and inexperience you should have never decided to run for the office or, you should have been truthful with the residents on election day and told them that a vote for you was a vote for someone that had no clue what they were doing. Of course, you could simply resign at no cost to county residents and we could fill your position with someone who does know what they are doing.
Jeff Greenlaw
Winnsboro
How to serve as a Fairfield County Council member 101:
The divisive decisions, combative interactions with county residents, lack of transparency, displays of resentment toward fellow council members and procedural failures of the Fairfield County Council over the last five months is not something you need to take a taxpayer funded luxury trip to a coastal beach resort to learn how to avoid. You don’t need a five star hotel stay and evenings filled with wine and fine dining to learn how to be a good neighbor.
Being a good neighbor, a person with a strong sense of bettering the community you live in, and listening to the concerns of others in your community are the only attributes and experiences you need to serve on the county council. Nobody in Myrtle Beach is going to teach you that. You either have a sense of community pride, the integrity to put service before self, ideals of serving and investing in county governance versus complying with national political agendas investment in
You don’t need a law degree to be on the council because the taxpayers fund the salary of a county attorney for legal advice. You don’t need a degree in finance to sit on the council because the taxpayers pay the salary of a county treasurer. You don’t need a doctorate in education from an Ivy League school to know our schools are underperforming. You don’t need a background in civil engineering to recognize our roads and infrastructure are a disaster. Heck, you don’t even need any work history in administration because the taxpayers also fund the salary of both a county administrator and a deputy administrator.
All of that is true………. Unless, you take such a caustic, combative and divisive approach to governing that you drive away the county administrator and their deputy, along with the county attorney. If your behavior as a governing body deters well qualified candidates from accepting opportunities to replace the exceptionally service oriented public servants that had been in place for years prior to your election, you probably aren’t doing things that better our community. If you put forth candidates for county positions that were fired for sexual harassment from previous public service, as a board, you clearly aren’t investing any degree of thoughtfulness toward the future of this community.
You don’t need to travel Myrtle Beach and spend thousands of taxpayer dollars to learn how to do your job. You just have to walk across the street and ask those you represent what they think. You know, the people whose doors you knocked on to ask for their vote but haven’t knocked on their doors since you got elected. You have to quit operating in a manner that shields you from the public view and you need to quit telling the residents of this county they have no say at county meetings.
To the members of the council, you’re welcome for the advice, although most would call it common sense. I could have possibly saved the county thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted on needless resort “training sessions” as a result of my insightful instruction of how to be a good human being and community service through selflessness to those you live among. But chances are, because you already approved the taxpayer funded vacation disguised as “training” last week, you’ll take those coastal trips anyway and the county will be no better off when you return.
Great points Jeff Greenlaw. An additional point-the training sessions can be viewed digitally.