Is this another turf battle?
The call by the chairman of the Hamilton County Commission for two more public budget hearings sounds like another tug of war between the Hamilton County mayor, who formulates the budget, and the commission, which must approve it.
Such turf battles have been frequent during the term of Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp and the commission elected in 2022, which featured six new members.
The initial one of those, shortly after the group’s inauguration, was the vote to expand the commission dais to accommodate the new mayor and two new commissioners. However, the mayor said he opposed spending the money for such an expansion, and he would just as soon sit in the audience.
Later in the fall of 2022 came Wamp’s decision to choose his own county attorney, a decision he later said he thought both the commission wanted and County Attorney Rheubin Taylor, in his mid-70s, would support. But Taylor wasn’t ready to go, and the commission took his side against Wamp, leading to a protracted legal battle.