A very good trend

Recent leadership exhibited by many on municipal councils indicates what we hope is flowering trend in local governance: intelligent cooperation toward common goals.

Within the space of a few months, at least two examples, involving a total of four local legislative bodies, show that problems can be addressed when cool heads come together and work to work on them. The council committees of John Nordine and Aaron Derr of Electric City and David Tylor and Erin Nielsen of Grand Coulee were able to work together and make progress on the police contract issue. And the council committees of Shawn Derrick and Ken Miles from Coulee Dam, with their counterparts from Elmer City, Don Bonertz and Donna DeWinkler, were able to work through some of their wastewater treatment billing issues.

It’s not that this has never happened in the history of the Grand Coulee Dam community, but it is significant, perhaps because in each case the legislators may have had to work around some bowed necks at the top.

It’s not uncommon for those who take top executive positions, such as a mayor’s seat, to hold definite ideas on the direction to take. But sometimes such stances can also act like blinders, preventing actual progress toward a practical goal.

In such cases, mayors do well to appoint council committees to work it out, as has happened in the instances cited. Taken altogether, that’s called statesmanship, and it’s a promising trend that can lead to better things to come for the entire community.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher