Essay Example on NJ County Commission Meeting - 15 June 2020

I attended a county commission meeting in the New Jersey County on 15Th June 2020 held at Greenwich town which was held at 1000hrs. The meeting was attended by 12 members of the council and two volunteers hence a total of fifteen persons. The agendas discussed in the conference are county park management, county employees' pension management, water, jail and court administration, tax collection and waste disposal. During the session, all members were engaged to participate fully in the discussions for the maximum results which were obtained by opinions or by member voting.

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The county park management agenda was discussed, whereby some concerns were raised about the various staffs who managed the parks. It was noted that some parks were not thoroughly cleaned and that was associated with the reluctant area supervisors responsible. Moreover, the issue of security was raised whereby the safety of citizens while in the park had diminished, considering a case where a young 13-year-old was kidnapped. On the other hand, there was a raised need to have the parks conserved by regular trimming of the grass and planting of more flowers.

The agenda of the county employees’ pension management was also discussed, whereby some of the members proposed that the employees should be granted 50% of their pension with the first three years after their retirement. The other members suggested that the pension of the retired employees were supposed to receive their pensions immediately after retirement. Due to the disagreements in opinions between the members, it was proposed that the decision would be made via the votes made by the members present. Only thirteen of the members current were to participate in the voting while the rest were to conduct the voting via secret ballots. After the polling, the results indicated that seven of the thirteen members voted for pensions to be granted immediately after retirement, while six voted 50% of the pension to be issued within the first three years of retirement.

The other contentious agenda addressed during this meeting was about the tax collection whereby it was reported that some of the business owners did not pay taxes because they received protection from some senior officials in the county. This issue raised lots of concerns on who the business owners were, and some of the members demanded the county officials aiding citizens in tax evasion to be revealed. After a lengthy discussion it the members agreed the matter be forwarded to the county anti-corruption committee for investigation and prosecution.

During the meeting, community service was discussed, whereby the county government would extent water to the informal settlements in the county. As per the ministry of water report released in January, most of the informal settlements in all the parts of the province lack reliable sources of clean water. This factor was also spotted in the ministry of health report on the factors which led to the increase in cholera cases in the densely populated informal settlements (Luger, 2018). Therefore the county commission tabled a two million dollar budget to supply clean water to the informal settlements.

Conclusion

However, the political minority leaders who attended the meeting had a significant influence on the decisions made during the session. First, they were at the forefront of the members who opposed the revealing of the corrupt county officials who were associated with screening the big business owners from paying taxes. Secondly, the political minority individuals tabled the water unavailability in the informal settlement areas, and due to their unity, the county commission presented a project budget to cater for the problem. The meeting was just like expected and implicated the excellent work done by the county commission.

Reference

Luger, M. (2018). Red tape and housing costs: How regulation affects new residential development. Routledge.