As part of National County Government Month, the California Association of Counties is posting a blog series on the role and value of county governments. Today’s opening item is entitled Counties Keep It Civilized.

From today’s post:

It’s been said that citizens only care about their local government when the water stops flowing out of their faucet, they hit a pothole, or their garbage doesn’t get picked up. Other than that, they are unengaged and willfully unaware of what counties do on their behalf.

. . .

Counties do a lot of things right, and even though they do their best to tell their positive stories, folks don’t always want to listen to what’s working well.

That’s why we are making an extra effort the week of April 19–23, 2010 to celebrate National County Government Month. CSAC will be tweeting, blogging and posting FaceBook information on county services, with a special daily focus on a service area, such as agriculture and natural resources, justice, transportation and health and human services.

While the range of services provided by county governments vary from state to state, there’s no doubt that the citizen services provided by county governments in Maryland and elsewhere are among the most important and valued to all Americans.