To Describe or Not

A wise friend of mine recently made this observation: “What Tuolumne County needs is some new information.” I found that statement so interesting that I have been thinking about it ever since I heard it.
Let’s say there is a lack of information in this County which would fill some need and presumably make our lives better. What would it be? The possibilities are endless.
I’ll stay with what I know best. There is missing information in my line of work, and if it became available, I think it could make a difference for many people. What is it?
A job description for a member of the Board of Supervisors!
The people we elect to serve on the Board win the job without a clear notion of what they are supposed to do. Most rookies learn the job through trial and error and watching what everyone else is doing. Some never learn how to do the job and wind up doing whatever their inner voice tells them to. You get mixed results with that approach, as we have all seen.
What Supervisors all seem to know instinctively is that the public has invested power in them. It is up to the individual Supervisor to manage the power. If there was a job description to work from, I think it would help people in and out of government be more realistic about the opportunities as well as limitations of the job. Managing power is not for the faint of heart. I would like to see the public involved in developing a description of the work that needs to be done to deliver services to the taxpayers. After all, that’s the group we are working for.
Going back to where I started: A job description for Supervisors would be new information because it doesn’t currently exist. The question is whether such a description would fall into the “need” category or the “nice to have” category. Right now, it is in the latter.