Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Where to Start?

OK, I admit it. I started this blog to talk about county government...and now I don't know where to start!

I could tell you all about the different elected officials (do you know we have 12 elected officials who serve at the county level and another 1 who serves at the district level?).

Or I could describe each of the 20 county departments, one at a time, explaining the why's of what they do and how they are funded.

But those are big topics, and they can be covered by existing documents to some degree.

What I had really hoped to do with this mode of communication was to start asking about our own role within county government, our role as citizens.

Sometimes it seems to me that we have adopted the act of saying "NO!" as our primary function within government (at any level). And certainly there are times when it is not only appropriate, but responsible action.

But if all we ever do is break into camps that shout "NO!" at each other's ideas, what is Island County going to look like for our children and grandchildren in 30 years? 50 years?

So OK. I'll start describing county departments -- as a way to begin more genuine conversations...to begin discovering what we actively want to create here in Island County. We'll see where that takes us. We can always try something different on down the line.

For those who wish to continue just saying "NO!" there are plenty of other blogs out there that you might find more satisfying. Here, we're going to practice finding what we can say "YES!" to.

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