Davis calls their bluff

The Oconee Enterprise picked up on an untold nugget of information that occurred in the closing moments of its Tuesday meeting.

After approving a $34 million budget for FY2010, which deviated significantly from Oconee County Chairman Melvin Davis's initial budget proposal which relied on utilizing $1 million out of $10 million in the county's reserve fund, Davis directly confronted the micro-management that could creep into the day-to-day functions of the local government ...

On the county manager topic, Davis continued quietly, "The board needs to consider the county manager form of government. If you want to change the form of government that you have, handle it up front with citizen input."

Later he said, "It's my feeling that the board wants to pass an ordinance initiating a county manager form of government. In my opinion, this is wrong. If a county manager form of government is desired, we should not do this in a backdoor manner. We need to be up front with our citizens and approach this system in the proper way."

I argued in my column on June 7 that the battle over the budget was more about the relationship between Davis and the commission rather than an actual haggling over the numbers. And Davis, for his part, gets that.

And, according to The Oconee Enterprise, that caught his most vocal critics off-guard ...

When Davis finished, the board sat silently. Finally John Daniell said, "I don't want to change the form of government or strip the chairman of anything."