The county tells us that their selection process designed to pick the new county administrator has narrowed the field down to four people, all from out of town.
Most of the departments at the county are run by elected officials. Hired administrators don’t get to tell elected officials what to do in their own departments.
We have the city manager form of government over at the city. Our city charter gives the city manager operational control of all city departments with the exception of the city attorney.
The elected officials at the county are prohibited from delegating the authority to run their own departments, so the future county administrator could at most be assigned responsibility for the departments that the county operates that are not required by our state constitution.
If you subscribe to the belief that our county should only provide the services that are required by the state then you won’t see much use for a county administrator.
We also should consider the fact that most of us will expect the county administrator to be non political. Ask our hospital administrator how it feels to be swimming in a pool filled with politicians. Whether he deserves it or not he is certainly in troubled water.
Somehow I doubt that any of the four announced finalists will get hired. If I am wrong, watch for the dust-up that will probably occur, a dust-up that will “require” the new administrator to leave. That way the politicians can have one of their own in the job.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I have said it before, and now I’ll say it again: This will not end well. We really do not need a County Manager, anymore than we need one for the City. This is all part of the smoke and mirrors utilized by the politicians to try to keep the public (the taxpayers) as much in the dark as possible. And, it’s working very well.
LikeLike