Yes, the Butler County Commission is an important job, and it takes an individual dedicated to making things work to be effective, but we as citizens need to help the commission as they endeavor to do the job they were elected to do.

There is a little thing in government called parliamentary procedure that is used everywhere from the United States Congress in Washington to the smallest city council in the nation. This procedure outlines how things are done, how people are recognized and how a motion is received. However, when someone visits the Butler County Commission meetings, parliamentary procedure is not what they find.

Our commission seems to have no rules. Arguments and accusations fly from citizens, from employees and from other elected officials. The chairman does not seem to have the authority, or at least he does not take the authority, to control the floor, and whenever someone in the audience wishes to speak up, they do.

These five men have a hard job. If they were to follow proper parliamentary procedure, as they have all been trained to do, we as citizens would have a much more efficient commission. We encourage everyone in the county to attend a commission meeting and see what happens there. We also encourage those who attend to sit there quietly and only speak when they have the floor. When the commissioners seem to vacate the rules of procedure, we encourage the citizens to demand they do things properly. There are only so many hours in a day, and as we all know time wasted is money spent.