A committee is a cul-de-sac…

down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. Sir Barnett Cocks (1907 – 1989)

This article has resulted in a number of phone calls and e-mails. Some words of appreciations and others wondering if I no longer supported the Reorganization effort. While we always enjoy hearing from our readers, no single article should be taken as representing final position, unless it is very, very, clearly stated as such. We believe the future of White River Township is best served if it is incorporated. How that occurs is the question being discussed in this forum. We hope that by sharing our thoughts, we can provoke your thoughts. In this case, certainly we are not pleased with the progress and process so far by the Reorganization Committee. But, that should not be interpreted as suggesting that the effort should be abandoned. Rather it is like a coach talking with a team at half-time saying if you want to win the game, you are going to have to change the way you play. At least that’s what this armchair coach thinks. Dann Veldkamp, May 26, 2009.

If there are any ideas among the members of the Reorganization Committee, they are being lured down a cul-de-sac, that much is clear. What was said at the first meeting is coming true; all the committee is doing is deciding which of Greenwood’s ordinances apply to the “urban” areas of White River Township and what “County ordinances” apply to the “rural” districts.

At first, I had some naïve hopes that there might be a real “reorganization.” That this might be an opportunity to re-think the way government services are provided, to streamline bureaucracy, to cut out the “dead wood,” to implement innovative ideas which are sprouting around the nation. But no, this is not the case at all. All we are getting is more of the same, just larger. Let Greenwood become a Class Two (or maybe Class One) city. Collect bragging rights for being the sixth (or whatever) largest city in the state. But to what end? To what advantage to the citizens?

So we can dump another $7.7 million into the “renovation” of “old town Greenwood? Why would we want to do that? The only reason I can imagine is if it would speed my trip from western White River Township to Sam’s Club! This is not said out of lack of concern for the current businesses in the area, but let’s be honest, many are located there because the rent must be low. While very legitimate businesses that have a right to flourish, they are not the types of businesses that you are likely to find in areas where the rent is high. It seems it is only a small, influential group of people, supported by the Mayor, who feel a need to renovate this area. I think one would be hard pressed to find one person in White River Township who thought this was a good use of public funds, and I wonder if it would even pass a popular vote in Greenwood.

When it was suggested that perhaps the form of government should change to one that included an elected council and a city manager, but no mayor, it elicited laughs from the members of the Governance Committee. “Charlie would never go for that,” one person was heard to say. And the idea found itself strangled in the cul-de-sac.

How many more ideas lie dead in that cul-de-sac? What about the idea of inter-local agreements, where we cooperate with the County for services. That one died at this week’s Reorganization Committee meeting under a flurry of complements. Committee members met with the Sheriff and assured him that they had heard no complaints from the citizens of White River Township concerning his services nor that of his deputies, but they would no longer be needed under the new order of things. Greenwood’s police would be expanded, doubled perhaps, to meet this need, while the residents continue to pay for the same number of County law enforcement officers. Throw another idea on the pile.

Now let’s not take this metaphor too far, there are at least two ideas is still alive. The first would form an “office of rural affairs” which would have direct access to the mayor and city council. It would serve as a voice for the residents living in the rural parts of the city. Good another reason to spend tax money on something that is both an oxymoron (rural affairs for a city?) and duplicates the very purpose of both the district council representative and the at-large council member,

The second “fresh idea” suggests that any trails built in WRT should be developed and managed under the control of the Department of Public Works. Imagine, one government organization giving something up to another! But then we learn that it is a lot of work for the Parks Department to manage trails along public thoroughfares because they have to coordinate with the DPW, so they may has well hand them over in their entirety. Now there is an idea that needs to remain alive. Surely ideas such as this are going to make the “reorganized” Greenwood a wonderful place to live.

It became painfully clear tonight that if you are looking for an efficient, effective, accountable and representative government, it is very unlikely to come from this committee.

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