You Should Be Able to Do That
Bart Mercer
Elmore County Commissioner
District 4
Over the last almost 8 years of serving as a county commissioner, there have been many times where a citizen will ask the Commission to take action on a particular issue that is of concern to them, and they are told that we legally can’t honor their request. The citizen’s response is normally, “you should be able to do that”. This is a result of the limited powers a county commission has per governing state statutes.
Specific to Elmore County one example is that we have no jurisdiction and ability to control junk yards that do decrease property values and are an eyesore. Another example is we can’t allow county owned equipment to work off the county right-of-way on private property. I agree with this one, but many times citizens don’t understand this when they want us to clean out a ditch on their property that is off the county right of way. Another issue that comes up on a regular basis because of the population growth in Elmore County is the fact our county subdivision regulations only include provisions that govern storm water runoff, county road access, road construction standards, utility access and lot layouts. These subdivision regulations do not allow the county commission to take into consideration anything of influence on our county beyond what state statutes allow to be included in a set of county subdivision regulations. The fact there are limited allowable powers within our subdivision regulations is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is one reason the Commission can only “react” to the effects of the population growth in our county.
The limits of the regulatory jurisdiction of the Elmore County Commission are set by the citizens we serve. Some assume county government is by default afforded the same regulatory jurisdiction as a municipality and that is not the case. If a county commission has any regulatory powers similar to a municipality, it is because the citizens of that county allowed them to have those powers.
I have said many times during county commission meetings that “the government needs to stay out of my business, stay out of my house and for sure stay off my land”. However, I do realize Elmore County is growing, and we are seeing demands placed on county governmental operations, services and our infrastructure like never before, in a county that has the lowest property tax rate in the state, a fact that does make me proud.
While solid conservative public policy and fiscal policy is a good foundation to operate from, there is an unintended downside to the County Commission being so limited when attempting to improve our county, keep up with the demands resulting from our population growth while attempting to address, and minimize those issues that will obviously have a high potential to adversely affect the citizens we serve.