It is very difficult to recruit people today to serve in public service. The issues they grapple with on behalf of the public, like managed growth, public safety, education and infrastructure funding have gotten more complicated with greater implications. The time required to serve well has increased.

More and more the idea of a citizen legislature is lost to a system that affords only the independently wealthy or retired to serve because no one else can afford to and be away from the avocation that pays his or her bills. As a result, we end up with an entrenched bureaucracy, with people serving well beyond what was intended when our system of representative democracy was conceived.

Still, we begrudge those willing to sacrifice to serve, who are paid some trivial monthly sum like our City Council members in Elizabeth City, a trip to a conference where at least in theory, they have an opportunity to network and increase their knowledge on issues critical to the community they serve.

Gathering information on the Internet or elsewhere is nowhere near the same experience as being at an interactive opportunity with experts and peers. I wish the critics, who apparently do not consider the logistics of planning a conference for more than 500 attendees, would stop and think about how limited the number of venues there are to accommodate a group that size.

I have seen and experienced the failing of government, especially local government, because those willing to be elected had no interest, ability or motivation to learn. Elizabeth City has suffered through many such governments and management. Conferences can be one of the most economical opportunities to find new and innovative solutions as well as to learn about others' failed answers to problems. The networking provides relationships that can be called on to do the same down the road.

For those who say the expertise should come from staff and that council does not need such knowledge, I only have to point to Chowan County to demonstrate what can happen to a government that rubber-stamps its staff.

While I applaud all efforts of accountability and cost savings, and think any factual criticism of an attendee squandering the conference opportunities is fair, I will gladly make an investment as a taxpayer in a reasonable amount of learning and networking for the few people willing to serve on behalf of the rest of us who let others do this for us.

HOLLY KOERBER

Elizabeth City