By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
With three of its five members being new, Washington’s City Council formed a transition committee to help those new council members ease into their new roles as elected officials.
New councilmen William Pitt and Bobby Roberson are joined on the committee by veteran Councilman Doug Mercer. While Pitt is a relative newcomer to city government, Roberson is a former planning director for the city. Pitt, who works as a telecommunicator for Beaufort County, has knowledge of emergency-communications systems.
“I’m hoping we can sit down and pull together information that the new members — and old members — may want to get them up to speed,” Mercer said in a brief interview.
The committee’s meetings, which will be open to the public, provide opportunities for its members to discuss their individual and collective goals and concerns as they relate to city government, Mercer said. Veteran council members will be able to share their experiences with and knowledge of city government with the new council members, and the new council members will be able to share their views on running the city, Mercer said.
The committee’s work should help better prepare the new council members for the upcoming budget-preparation season, which can be daunting for those who have never been through the process, Mercer said.
Pitt said he wants the committee to provide a “new set of eyes, a new set of ears” when it comes to developing solutions to the challenges and problems the city faces. Once those solutions are developed, Pitt said, it’s the committee’s duty to “bring that information back to the public.”
The committee also must work on finding ways to make the city “more attractive” to its residents and help build a “better relationship between the city and its residents,” Pitt said. That can be accomplished with city government being more open and responsive to its residents, he said.
The committee provides a forum where views from the council’s diverse members can be discussed, Pitt said, noting that the council includes a range of ages, different races, retirees and working people.
“We all have a different view of where we think the city should be going,” Pitt said.
Roberson views the committee as sort of “a clearinghouse” where issues can be discussed and a consensus on each issue can be reached before those issues go to the full council for consideration. He believes the committee’s work can save the full council time because some issues will have been researched and discussed at the committee level and not require the council to spend extensive time on them during council meetings.
Roberson believes he will make significant contributions to the committee.
“I think I bring to the committee 38 years of municipal service other than the City of Washington,” Roberson said. “I’ve had some public-works experience. I was assistant city manager in Wilson.”