Ellicott Town Board members are poised to rescind a resolution to abolish one of its two town judge positions.

It would be, in our opinion, the right move.

But no one should think for one minute that rescinding the resolution means the judge position should be removed from the chopping block. Quite the contrary, town officials should take the opportunity to look at all their options for the court before putting the decision up for voters to decide in November. The best option for the town may still be to eliminate a judge position in Ellicott Town Court, depending on what the court’s expenses and revenues show. But the public doesn’t know what the court’s revenues and costs are because of the closed process the Town Board used when it arrived at the decision to eliminate a position, nor does it know the trends of cases heard in the court over time.

That’s all information the public should have to arrive at an informed decision.

But there is a bigger picture to consider here that will take more work, but potentially has a bigger payoff. As the county’s population shrinks, a trend that isn’t likely to reverse itself anytime soon, town courts around the county have been starting to share judges. Some courts don’t have the caseloads to justify having their own judge. Some towns can’t find anyone to run for a judge position. Whatever their reason, there are fewer judges in the county than there were 20 years ago — and the consolidation is working just fine. In our view one of the options that should be on the table for Ellicott is to examine if a neighboring town wants to consolidate its court operations into the town of Ellicott’s.

Sharing a justice with a neighbor may not come to fruition now, but it should be on the table both as a revenue boost for Ellicott and as a move toward greater regionalism and shared services.

Speaking of public involvement, the board did better announcing its special meeting to discuss this issue last week — but not by much. The information came on a Friday afternoon with no mention of why the board was holding a special meeting. An agenda was never posted on the town website as had happened with an April 27 special meeting to set a bond resolution to approve work on the town’s water tank. And, the meeting was held on a night that wasn’t the board’s regular meeting night.

Town residents should be kept in the loop on major decisions like eliminating a judge position or possibly sharing services a judge with neighbors. How can the board expect the public to be involved when it does the absolute bare minimum to let the public know a meeting is coming?