How Well Do You Use Your Time?
by Elaine Cogan
Holding a public hearing until the early hours of the morning after a full meeting on the budget is a sympton of a commission out of control, explains Elaine Cogan.
summaries of other Elaine Cogan articles
Read first few paragraphs of article:
There are many important planning, zoning and land use issues in
your community. You would not be on the planning commission if
you were not sincerely dedicated to solving them.
Then, why are you sometimes vaguely dissatisfied that you were
pressed into making important decisions prematurely because
there "just was not enough time" to do it right? Why does the
commission spend hours on minutiae and minutes on policy? Why do
you always seem to be playing catch up to meet the schedules of
other agencies?
Holding a public hearing until the early hours of the morning
after a full meeting on the budget is less an indication of how
busy you are and more a symptom of a commission out of control.
Jamming the agenda with personnel matters so that either you
take up public testimony when you are too tired to focus
intelligently or postpone the hearing and risk the ire of people
who have come miles to participate, is neither politically wise
nor good management.
...
