No place for personal agendas in these talks

No

place for personal agendas in these talks

To the members of the Association

of Fayette County Governments:

Do we want to be competitors,

or are we going to cooperate? Are some entities going to go their own

way and let the rest of us pick up the pieces and deal with the results

or are we going to try to work together to keep this community a special

place? I think that these questions are some of the most important questions

facing elected officials in Fayette County today.

Tuesday night, Oct. 23, at

the quarterly meeting of the Association of Fayette County Governments

(which is made up of the County Commission, School Board, the five cities

and our local state legislators), we were shown an example of one approach

to these questions. I would like to suggest that we look at another approach.

On that Tuesday, the approach

taken was: prepare a detailed presentation with slides and charts that

is intended to get YOUR point across and don't give those who have a different

view on an issue an opportunity to prepare their information. This approach

tries to steamroller your opposition and to stampede those in attendance,

who might not be familiar with the facts, into supporting your viewpoint.

Fortunately, even though the

presentation was very well done and the information included seemed to

make the one viewpoint almost a "no-brainer," most of those

in attendance were able to see this effort as what it really was and to

understand that there is another view of the issue.

Our community is under pressure.

We have real issues to address. What type of development occurs and how

much, where and when it occurs. Regionalism and the potential loss of

control over our future that it can bring. These impact our schools, transportation,

public safety and our overall quality of life. We still have an opportunity

to achieve a good outcome. But, we risk giving it all away if we insist

on seeing only our own, short-term interests.

I would like to respectfully

request that we place on the agenda for the next meeting of the AFCG a

discussion on how we should address issues in the future and about how

we should address, and treat, each other. This is an issue that must be

settled. If the point of view of those who believe that we should ambush,

embarrass and harass each other prevails, then we can anticipate the same

fate for the AFCG as befell the FUTURES Committee and we can predict the

nature of the service delivery negotiations scheduled for next year.

I would like to hope that the

citizens of our cities and of our county demand that we conduct our discussions

on real issues and not on personal agendas, animosities and vendettas.

I hope that they take the opportunity of all elections to make their point.

I hope that they send this message: You people are elected to look after

OUR interests, if you can't refrain from your personal agendas, please

keep them off the front pages and out of your official meetings and discussions.

Peter Pfeifer

Fayette County Commissioner