Workshops are a good idea

Posted by ChaddsFordLive on January 7, 2010

It will be interesting to see what, if any affect, the new
workshop sessions for the Chadds Ford Board of Supervisors will have on the
regular meetings.

Chadds Ford has traditionally held only one supervisors’
meeting per month and, as many people know, they tend to run longer than the
actual agenda would indicate. Side conversations between supervisors and others
seated at the main table take extra time. It has also seemed that some members
at that table were unprepared, not ready to handle an agenda item and had to be
brought up to speed during the meeting. This lack of efficiency stretches
meetings far beyond what is truly warranted and makes the board look
amateurish.

Supervisors recognized this lack of efficiency several years
ago when they instituted a 10-day policy. That policy required developers and
others who wanted be on the official agenda to get documents and other
paperwork to the board members 10 days before the meeting. The idea was that
each supervisor would have 10 days to review the agenda item, knowing what was
going to be presented before hand. This worked well, but only when followed. It
appeared too often the policy had been abandoned.

So this year the board is instituting the workshops. They
will be held 5:30 p.m. on the Monday before the regular meetings. Those regular
sessions remain scheduled for the first Wednesday of the month. There will be
no voting taking place at the workshops, but they will give supervisors a
chance to discuss agenda items in open, before the public. What the new
workshops are supposed to do is streamline the regular meetings, according to
Supervisors’ Chairman Deborah Love, just as the 10-day rule was supposed to do.

But there is something else, too. Supervisors generally
gather in the conference room before the regular meeting to review matters in
private. We do not make any allegation that there were violations of the
state’s Sunshine Act, but it could have appeared that there were.

The Sunshine Act allows for supervisors to meet privately to
discuss litigation, personnel and real estate issues. All other matters must be
discussed in public and voting must be public as well.

We think the workshops are a good idea and hope they fulfill
their intended purpose.