Elected people exchange cool meetings for sweaty seats this budget season When the city of Luverne and Rock County say the way they do business is changing for the foreseeable future, they mean it.And that means that the way we do business with them will change too.Even people who have lived through budget cuts and constraints before say they have never seen what’s coming in 2004 and 2005. Elected people have been known to whine about their difficult jobs at budget time, but it’s actually warranted this year. And the nice thing is, instead of complaining, county and city people are thoughtfully considering every nickel and dime they spend.They are even starting to think of it as a positive thing — a long-term streamlining of government that may have been overdue.Sometimes people think of their politicians as sitting on puffy chairs, placing orders for crowns that are too small for their oversized heads. That certainly isn’t the case this year. They’re more into pulling up bootstraps than modeling crowns.They are considerate and pensive … and breaking into sweats around the table.As hard as it will be, the county and city of Luverne are considering personnel cuts, which makes the biggest long-term impact on budgets. But it also makes a long-term impact on people’s lives, and our boards know that.They’re looking out for all of us — employees, and citizens — and it wouldn’t hurt to give them credit for trying. This would never happen hereEven before our new and improved, efficient government, we know this could never happen around Rock County. This story made the Associated Press:Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling okay. George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was still working during the weekend. His boss Elliot Wachiaski said, "George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn't say anything. He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself." A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary.
