County Council Languishing Under Poor Leadership and "Extenuating Circumstances"

The County Council had scheduled a precautionary meeting this past week to assure they had all of their “T’s” crossed and their “I’s” dotted on the 2007 budget, specifically pay raises for the county employees. The only members of the council that fulfilled their obligation and showed up at the meeting were the three Republican’s, returning member Marty Hawk and outgoing members Sue West and Trent Jones. Each of the Democrat members offered some excuse as to why they failed to fulfill their obligation and attend this important meeting which now leaves some doubt as to whether or not the previous vote on the pay raise complied with the State statutory requirements.

Needing a unanimous vote for the amendment to pass Michael Woods opted to stay away because he did not support the proposed pay raise for the county employees. It was reported Warren Henegar was out of the country. Outgoing member Mark Stoops was reported to be in Ohio. Sophia Travis or should I say Greg Travis communicated the excuse via email that took the prize for the least creative. Indication was that she couldn’t attend due to “extenuating circumstances”. What kind of extenuating circumstances could have prevented her from notifying the other members of the Council of her impending absence? Once again she has proven that she does not possess the necessary qualities that are required of an effective leader. Instead of admitting that her responsibility as President of the County Council wasn’t high enough on her priority list to make the meeting this past week she came up with this lame one-size fits all excuse. She didn’t concern herself with her elected duties and responsibilities and she obviously failed to see the importance of securing the much-deserved pay raises for county employees. If this meeting was truly unnecessary why didn’t she notify all of the Council members and staff that the meeting had been canceled rather than wasting both their time and that of the County staff in attendance.

Travis’ actions are proof positive that she fails to take all of the responsibilities of the position seriously by continuing to play her childish partisan games. When called to task she fails to be able to respond to virtually any question without referring to her prepared statements. To avoid further embarrassment she has resorted to communicating almost exclusively through email where it’s obvious her husband acts as the puppet master. In this latest breach of responsibility she has failed to carryout the duties that she swore to the citizens of Monroe County to uphold and then makes matters worse by making a mockery of the process by offering such a lame excuse for her absence. To make matters worse and for what gain the reasoning escapes me she has been posting and circulating some less than flattering comments on colleagues and various other elected officials of both Parties. Her only possible objective is that she wants to further polarize County government by proving that she holds little regard for any resemblance of bipartisan cooperation. With only Marty Hawk left on the Council to keep the Democrats in check I’m certain the County’s legal department will have their hands full in’07 and unfortunately all at the taxpayer’s expense.