County commissioner do what? & why we (LAKE County) need 3?

2 part discussion if you will.

Former Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez is now running for Lake County commissioner next year. OK this is typical of our local politican's up here. They run for one office, serve the max terms and then run for another office, serve the max terms and then run again for their prior office, etc. One of the columnist for our local newspaper calls it the political muscial chairs game.

NWI INGOs what are your thoughts on this canidate?

BTW got to love his comment that was quoted for the article.

"Dominguez states on his newly launched campaign site that he will focus on creating jobs and using taxpayer resources more efficiently."

Hum.. wonderful keywords that everyone wants to hear.

.gov CANNOT create jobs!

Also another quote:
"We must change the way county government operates," according to the site. "We must make government more accountable and more transparent to Lake County taxpayers, senior citizens and small businesses."

Hum... How is being a commissioner going to help make .gov more accountable?

Read more: Dominguez to challenge Scheub for Lake commissioner

The second question is what does a "county commissioner" do? I assume other counties in IN also have them? Why does Lake County need 3?
From the limited info on the lake county .gov wesbite it seems that they (commissioners) are the exectives of whatever the county board approves. (ie. mini/local level president vs mini/local congress = county board) is that correct? Or am I off base?

Here is the IC definition of a county commissioner:

IC 36-2-2

I was going to cut and paste the whole thing, but it is a bit long. Essentially, the commissioners are the executive branch of county government. They oversee the various departments of county government. Plus, they are the ones that put together the county budget, then send it to the county council for approval or disapproval.

Thanks so they are "mini-prez" so to speak & it's per law that we have 3.

jediagh said:

They run for one office, serve the max terms and then run for another office, serve the max terms and then run again for their prior office, etc.

Click to expand...

Hey, if it is good enough for Vladimir Putin....

BTW, what's the salary for a commissioner? The budget says total salaries for the commissioners (and staff, I think) are ~ $780k. Oh, and another $8M in "personal services."