Editorial Courthouse Games

After a year of playing political games in Canton, St. Lawrence County Legislators have finally voted 9 to 5 to select their own Industrial Development Agency as the county's economic development arm.

Why it has taken a year for members of the county legislature to figure out that their own county professional staff members have the best knowledge of the needs of the county's business community is a mystery to us.

If legislators had bothered to speak to area business managers and business owners, they would have heard almost unanimous praise for their staff.

Unfortunately, legislators were not listening to anyone except for politicians who were looking for a way to turn the economic development agency into a place where they could hire political ward heelers, campaign workers and other political hacks.

What the members of the county legislature showed over the past year was that at a time when the county was facing double digit unemployment, when thousands were laid off and thousands more had just given up looking for work, county government was more interested in playing political games than in letting its professional team focus on helping businesses to put people back to work.

While we realize the members of the county legislature have to run for office to serve on the board, it's wrong to try to use county government jobs as a way to reward political supporters.

For four decades, Republicans and Democrats insisted that the county's IDA and economic development office be kept off limits from political shenanigans.

Unfortunately, the current county legislature has violated that long standing unwritten agreement.

That's the major reason why the IDA has been pushing to have the agency contract with the county legislature, instead of remaining as a county department.

It's unfortunate that it's come to this point.

But in the long run, it is best to keep the county legislature away from economic development efforts.

We don't need to have politicians meddling when they have shown they have little in the way of common sense.