By SAMANTHA BEAL
Staff writer
The Clarion County Association of Township Officials formed to provide local elected leaders a unified voice, but now the organization faces a fading future.
A notice regarding the possible dissolution of the CCATO appeared at several municipal meetings in August.
Citing the association’s “dire need of members,” the notice informed county township officials that the 2017 Clarion County Convention of Township Officials could be the last. The problem has been a lack of leadership interest.
“Over the past years, our (executive) board members numbers have been dwindling,” Clarion Township Supervisor and three-year CCATO President Bergen Dilley said.
The board has nine official members, seven of whom have been active the last two years. Of the seven who attend regular meetings, five hold official positions. Two of the five – supervisors from Clarion, Limestone, Elk and Monroe townships – are not running for re-election.
According to Dilley, who has been a township supervisor since 1996, interest in replacing them does not seem to exist.
“We have what they call ‘members at large,'” Dilley said.
They are part of CCATO and serve on the executive board. They substitute for a board member when he or she isn’t available for meetings. Despite members at large and 150 to 200 CCATO associates, no one wants to be a full board member.
When Dilley learned two executives would leave at the end of their terms, he immediately sought replacements. He contacted elected officials and appointed secretaries in numerous townships without getting an affirmative answer.
“I just struck out,” he said.
Why there is a lack of interest is something that Dilley says is puzzling. An association is important, he said, for holding area townships together. The association is now held together by just the executive board.
Executives meet six or seven times a year at the president’s township building. They are responsible for organizing CCATO convention details.
When resolutions are brought up and approved by association members, executives are responsible for sending them to the state convention.
Dilley addressed the importance of keeping the CCATO convention alive through the executive board. The annual gatherings allow township officials to attend workshops, visit with service and equipment vendors and mingle with fellow officials. This year’s convention is scheduled Sept. 28 at the Knox Fire Hall.
Dilley said they also offer officials opportunities to communicate with each other to better manage their own townships, and hearing advice at the convention could “solve your problem right on the spot.”
Dilley said his attendance at a convention resulted in a resolution to a problem in Clarion Township.
“We had a lot of road signs being stolen and painted,” and that replacing them was expensive, he said.
At the convention, Dilley found a vendor who sold the signs the township used. When he inquired about the price, the vendor quoted him half of what the township had been paying. Dilley has bought signs from the company ever since.
But if he’s not able to find at least two new board members, Dilley said such opportunities will disappear.
“I don’t want to see CCATO die,” he said. “I’d just hate to see it go away.”