MAGISTRATE CHURCH BECOMES SELECTIVE WITH HIS PARTICIPATION ON FISCAL COURT

In the fiscal court meeting on July 20, 2010 it was announced that Magistrate Steve Church had asked to be removed from the human resources committee since he would not be serving after December 2010. Magistrate Church was replaced with Magistrate Bob Leslie who will be an able replacement.

At the time that the announcement was made I thought that it was odd as elected officials, although defeated in either a primary or general election, usually continue to serve out their term in office and vote on issues that are brought before them. As far as I know Church did not resign from all of the committees on which he serves. Why did he just choose to resign from one committee? Later in the meeting County Judge Duane Murner nominated a replacement to the planning and zoning commission. Considering Magistrate Church’s position on being on the human resources committee, I thought that he might opt to not vote on anything that was going to have any effect after January 2011. As the commissioners are nominated for a four-year term, I thought perhaps Magistrate Church might opt to not vote on the nominee. However, Magistrate Church did vote to approve the nomination.

The question now is, will Magistrate Church abstain from voting on issues or matters that will continue to affect the county after he is out of office? It appears that he will just be selective with his participation on fiscal court.

If Magistrate Church considered his term completed or over when he was defeated in the May primary, why didn't he just resign at that time and save the taxpayers the cost of his salary? Frankly, I thought that he might either resign or miss a lot of meetings. After all, he did appear to feel that he was doing the residents of Oldham County a favor by serving.