Pearl of Wisdom # 82 Knowing Names of Public Officials

Most people in a community cannot recite the names of all the members on their city council, or those governing their schools, or those sitting on their county board, let alone recall more than a handful of elected officials from the past.  Why is that?

Perhaps it is because so many local public officials live in a gray twilight; they don't have a clue what their real role in government is.  Some locally elected public officials seem to want nothing more than to cut current local government services; others cry out for lower taxes but can't figure out any acceptable methods to lower them.

As a non-elected county administrator, I saw my job much more than providing services and cutting taxes.  I found  my sense of purpose in these thoughts expressed by Theodore Roosevelt.

 

It is far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy nor suffer much simply because they want to serve their terms in office in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.