County Meeting
Not Impressive

On the evening of January 8 I had an eye-opening introduction into Orange County politics, attending the County budget meeting, presided over by side judges Pease and Brown.

At first I just sat and took it all in. I had spent a few hours studying the situation in the days before the meeting but still was unsure what to expect. This was a meeting that, knowing how well-attended and contentious the previous meeting was, I would have thought arrangements would have been made to have it moderated, but instead I found disorganization and disunity.

I thought, well okay folks; let’s try to give the benefit of the doubt to people who serve the public trust for what (even with the large salary increases of the last few years) is still a fairly small amount of money. I thought perhaps some of the inability to answer specific questions about the details of the budget on the part of Judge Pease could be attributed to a lack of understanding of standard budget practices. Perhaps this was not her strong suit; perhaps she really shines in the people skills area.

Then it became obvious that for whatever reason Judge Pease seems to be at odds with many of the folks that she works with, to the point where at least one person has come to avoid her and Judge Brown found it necessary to just offer his own separate budget without even communicating with her in advance of his intentions (bad form for Judge Brown). I was not there so I don’t know which parties are at fault and how, but in my experience, if that many people who work with you on a daily basis have issues with you perhaps you are at least a part of the problem.

The next shocking revelation was when one of her self-described supporters said that Judge Pease is trained as an accountant. Imagine my surprise to find that Judge Pease had not even brought with her a copy of the first draft budget that met with so much resistance in December, nor could she remember the first draft budget total to give those of us who did not have that information a basis of comparison.

This was just one of many such failures to provide comparative data for analysis by those who attended the meeting. I am no accountant but I have been involved in budgeting for various groups enough that I found this type of error unimaginable.

There is a clear ideological difference of opinion about how to run the county courts, and that is okay. It was apparent that many of the people in the room that night did not like the idea of the office of Side Judge becoming a well-paid profession, while Judge Pease is apparently trying to make a career out of her position. This difference of opinion does not make her a bad person, but I would suggest that if the good judge wants to be a professional she should at least learn to act like one, by being prepared

Tod Moses

Thetford Center