‘One of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had’
Karen Bowerman and Gary Medvigy
reflect on their years as Clark County Council members,
the reasons they’re leaving and the work still to be
done
Columbian, June 10, 2024
Excerpt:
"County charter cited Both
Bowerman and Medvigy said they chose not to run for
reelection because of the way the county charter is
written: It separates the powers of the legislative
branch (the elected county council) from the executive
(the appointed county manager).
“If you look at
the way the charter was constructed … the separation of
the legislative and executive branches was key,”
Bowerman said, adding that the charter places strict
limits on what the council can do.
“All the capacity is with the executive,”
Medvigy said.
“It means that for us, as
individual councilors, when we come upon an issue that
needs resolution through the county bureaucracy, we have
one path.
That is through the county manager.
Otherwise, we are ‘interfering,’” Bowerman said.
While Bowerman said she is completely supportive of
County Manager Kathleen Otto, she said the charter
language creates a bottleneck.
Medvigy did have
suggestions for whomever wins his seat.
“In order
for us to fulfill our role as county councilors, we need
to sit down with the manager at the beginning of the
year and say, ‘Here are our priorities. Here’s what’s
going well. Here’s where we would like to see
improvement, and we would like to measure that
improvement in a few months.’ Then, at the end of the
year, do an evaluation,” he said.
That kind of
end-of-year evaluation is common practice elsewhere but
isn’t in the charter or the county manager’s contract,
Medvigy noted."
