We’ve just had the West Texas Annual Conference, and the North & East and South Texas meetings are both coming up. Are you ready? Have you ever served on your regional or state committees? Generally, they are comprised of the Nominations, Site Selection, Resolutions, and Scholarship committees.
Have you ever really stopped and thought about the Resolutions Committee and the importance of it? Have you considered how our resolutions help communicate with our folks back home when we have to explain for the millionth time why our hands are tied by the legislature for one reason or another and why we can’t act on an issue the way they want us to?
Often, when we are talking through their concerns, we have to explain the difference between state, county, and city government structures and the freedoms and limitations of each, with counties being, undoubtedly, the most hamstrung of all of them.
Resolutions are used in county government to highlight the legislative priorities we have as individual counties and as counties within regional and statewide associations. Many of the resolutions are brought forth from one year to the next because they continue to be important to our counties.
Are there some missing from the list? The environments we serve in are evolving quickly. Our population is growing like crazy both statewide and in many of our counties. The issues with the border are affecting many of our counties, and water supply continues to be an elevated concern for many of us in fast-growth counties. Should we add these topics to our resolutions so that maybe the folks in the beautiful pink building in Austin will hear us? What other items should we think about adding?
When we can’t, per statute, give our citizens the outcomes they want – and being bound by statute is the reason – should we bring these concerns forward in Resolutions Committee discussions so we can at least try to highlight their importance to the folks back home? They are certainly demanding it, loud and clear.
That’s the beauty of our organization. It’s for us and by us. There’s no wizard behind the curtain telling us what to do or how to think. It’s not a “shadow government” (ha, yes, I’ve heard that one, too). We come together, have our discussions, express our concerns, and do what is right by our counties and our citizens.
What we do is a reflection of the day-to-day course of our jobs, and together we are accountable to that. We are, after all, one of the closest levels of government, serving our friends and neighbors, and doing our best by them.