Commissioners say low turnout casts doubt on future of road meetings

Westmoreland commissioners’ road tour, which took public meetings from Allegheny Township to Youngwood and finally to Rostraver this year, ended with sparse crowds, raising doubt about the future of the program that was restarted after a two-decade hiatus.

Commissioners met Thursday night in the activity center at Cedar Creek Park before a small room containing county employees and less than a dozen local residents, an audience that officials say reflects a lack of interest among the public for relocating the voting sessions from the courthouse in Greensburg.

Commissioner Sean Kertes said the level of the public’s interest didn’t warrant the cost involved with moving the meetings to external locations and in the evening hours. Citizens groups this year asked commissioners to make the monthly county gatherings more accessible to those who cannot travel to Greensburg or attend the traditionally morning sessions.

“There just weren’t many people here, and, as I suspected, we had more county employees here than the general public. I think we should probably go back to what we were doing before,” Kertes said.

The price tag for the relocated meetings has not been tallied, but officials said there were overtime and travel costs for courthouse staffers to attend the sessions.

The commissioners previously stopped traveling meetings for the same reason.

As part of the county’s 250th birthday celebration last year, commissioners gathered for a meeting in Hempfield at the site of the county’s first courthouse at Historic Hanna’s Town. They conducted another voting meeting last summer at Westmoreland County Community College as part of a human services fair.

In January, a group of residents lobbied commissioners to expand the roving meetings to bring government closer to citizens. Commissioners held their April meeting at night in the courthouse and moved one of two voting sessions in June to Northmoreland Park in Allegheny Township.

Commissioners returned to the community college in July, and the second of their two August meetings was held Thursday night in Rostraver. Few attended the meetings at the local parks.

“It was a noble experiment, and it’s regrettable more of the public didn’t come,” Commissioner Ted Kopas said. “I am not prepared to give up. It’s good government.”

Harve Anderson of Rostraver attended Thursday’s meeting with his wife.

“It’s good when they come to this side of the county,” Anderson said.

Joy Gazi, a retired teacher from Rostraver, also made the short drive from her home to watch county government in action.

“I’m from here, so it is convenient. They should do it more often,” Gazi said.

Commissioners have made no decision about whether to continue the road trips in 2025.

“I’m disappointed that we did not have more people from the public attend,” Commissioner Doug Chew said. “I still believe in having as much transparency as possible, but I don’t know about the cost of doing these road shows in the future.”