Editor:

At the most recent meeting of the Oneida County Comprehensive Plan Oversight Committee, I learned that the committee believes it exists to “staple together” the various town plans, with no concern for the veracity of what they are stapling together. Actually, an elegant legal opinion was aired, with the assistance of the county corporation counsel, which supported this grand “staple” interpretation of the law. This raises a couple of questions:

1) Why are scarce county tax funds being expended for per diems and expenses for a big group to gather together simply to staple together documents? Wouldn’t it be more cost efficient to buy a giant rubber stamp at Office Max for the distinguished chair of the committee to use at his lesiure to approve, staple together, then forward the town plans? Oh, and from what I saw, he needs a giant stapler also.

2) Why have the county corporation counsel attend such enlightening sessions if all he does is load the giant staple gun? Wouldn’t a much cheaper legal intern or clerk be up to that task? Why should counsel waste legal brain power listening to proclamations that “Oversight” means not peeking at what is put on the table by the towns? A “No-Seeums” stamp would work.

3) How can anyone with even a shred of awareness of what it means to take seriously public concerns agree to serve on this joke of an “Oversight” committee? It takes an unusual form of courage, for it is pure torture to hear numerous committee members insist on dodging the very intent of the word “Oversight.” They need a more accurate name. “No Oversight: You Betcha,” comes to mind.

4) If the County Oversight Committee, and thence the entire County Board, has no concern or awareness of what it might be “stapling together,” why not just get someone to translate the entire county documentation into Mandarin Chinese? You know, skip the basic American thing of public participation in the policy process. I am certain the Chinese do ignore public opinion almost better than anyone else on earth. Why should Oneida County even try to measure up, or down if you prefer, to Chinese governmental standards?

E.E. Roach, Pelican Lake