Letter to the Editor: Not Enough Public Discussion on Village Manager Vote

Fellow residents,

Recently, the position of the village manager has received much attention. At the May17th meeting, the board voted to ‘begin deliberations’ on revisions to the laws that spell out the authority of the village manager in Montgomery. After three months of revisions, authored outside of the public view, the board approved with almost no discussion in support of such changes. 

Additionally, all of these revisions cost the village $1,795 in attorney’s fees.

The board set up a special village board meeting to discuss all of the proposed changes in public, at one sitting, from start to finish. Anyone who attended that meeting can attest that the people did not get the public discussion deserved. Nothing was said to either explain the thought process or the problems being solved. 

The newest version was authored by Trustees Kaczmarek and Bond at some point between meetings. Instead of explaining the changes that were made in this 77 page agenda, we jumped to the eighth item on the agenda where the board could make final approval.

Before casting a vote, I stressed the following to my colleagues:   

I can agree with 80% of these changes, but strongly disagree with the 20% that strips the authority from the manager position to run daily operations.

We currently have a professionally trained individual who is highly qualified.  If we approve these changes tonight, what kind of person are we going to find to fill this position in the future? 

We officially become a resume builder for recent college graduates or perhaps an individual looking to rebuild a career.  Neither of which will be qualified enough to manage a $23 million dollar budget, which does not serve in the best interest of our residents.

I wish that our residents were afforded the opportunity to witness these discussions in public and that these changes would have been submitted for debate amongst the board. I say that knowing that the outcome likely would have been the same, except our democratic process would not have been short circuited.

It is in regards to taking a huge step backwards with these changes, that I vote 'No'.

I am very concerned for the future of the village services, the well being of our staff, and our taxpaying residents.

We will start to lose good people at the village of Montgomery, which will affect the quality and level of service to our residents and most certainly cost the taxpayers more money.

It is my hope that this is not the way we handle doing business in the future.  We strive to be a first class town and this was hardly first class governance.

Matt Brolley
Village Trustee