County Government County Government : Ah Simplicity! The following was recently shared and is thought to have been written by a County Clerk in Chelan County . It describes how our County Government came about. “ County Commissioners : When it came to the County Government , because of the rural nature of County Government , it was important to get products to market and therefore we have County Commissioners . They were basically Road Commissioners when we started this form of government, because farmers needed the roads in order to get their goods to market. Assessor: Then it was necessary of course to raise money to finance the system and an office called the Assessor was created to determine what values should be placed on the land for paying taxes. Treasurer: Then the money needed to be accounted for and stored someplace, so the Treasurer came into existence. Auditor: Again, thinking that human nature needed to be watched, the Auditor was given the job of watching to see that those functions were performed appropriately. Sheriff, Prosecutor and Court: Now at the beginning of our vast country, initially, if people began to act inappropriately, we could simply take them to the county line and send them West. (Probably this is the reason why we have so many problems; because we were all the ones sent out to the West.) Soon we had to take care of our own problems by arresting and prosecuting people. So the Sheriff and Prosecutor and the Court were needed. Clerk: And because we needed courts and wanted a check and balance on the court, which had to be an independent third branch of government, we needed a Clerk to carry out the functions of recording everything the court did so that the public could determine whether or not this third branch was representing them well. Some judges…..would rather have control over the Clerk, but interestingly enough, when the Judicial Reform was proposed in 1972/75, the Superior Court Judges Association opposed it on the basis that it would put too much power in the hands of the Supreme Court. They indicated that it would violate the doctrine of the separation of powers; which is exactly what we are talking about.”