The Marion County Commissioners Thursday morning voted to create a Council of Governments (COG) to help provide “one voice” for the county. While they are alone in this newly created COG, they say they hope to include more local governments, including townships and school districts. The move comes the same week that Marion City Council began discussion on joining any potential COGs.
County Commissioner Ken Stiverson says they spoke with TRECA just like the City of Marion recently did, but decided to move forward with the creation of the COG on their own. The commissioners say they have spoken to several of the township governments who expressed their desire to join with the Commissioners. The approval to create the COG on Thursday only includes the Commissioners and others will have to be added to the group going forward.
Stiverson says the Commissioners decided to move forward to allow the County and Townships to speak as one voice when it comes to any consolidations and specifically mentioned the proposed county-wide combined dispatch.
While Stiverson said he thinks everyone in Marion County should be together on one page, he stated, “Some people have other ideas,” without elaborating on who those people are. He stressed that the Commissioners don’t want any “turf wars.”
One reason the Commissioners gave for moving forward now instead of waiting for the City of Marion is they said they had to have the COG formed by March 1. Stiverson said this was to provide the ability to apply for state funding that was set aside for this purpose. However, Stiverson also stated that he does not believe the county COG would actually be applying for the funding.
Marion City Council also discussed the possibility of applying for funding, but said they could not be ready by March 1. It was explained to Council that was not an issue as there were three other grant deadlines available before the end of the year. This would mean there was no hard deadline causing the quick action by the Commissioners.
Marion Mayor Scott Schertzer explained that he is simply asking City Council for permission to join a COG, not necessarily create their own. After learning about the Commissioners actions on Thursday, he stated that while COGs are the future of local governments, he believes that you can have too many.
Schertzer said it was commendable that the Commissioners moved forward to actually create the beginnings of a COG and said that he thinks all local governments, including the City of Marion, should join.
City Council will discuss COGs again at the next Finance Committee meeting on February 21. The North Central Education Service Center (NOESC) will be in attendance to express their desire to be a part of the COG. NOESC has also discussed those wishes with the Commissioners.
John Shank of TRECA said the news that the Commissioner had chosen to go ahead and form the Marion County COG was exciting. He said TRECA would certainly look at the group and their goals to determine if they would be interested in joining.
