Never lose sight of the basic reason for the County charter.

I watched with interest yesterday the machinations of the freeholder committee as they ponder whatever version of County charter they decide to present for the vote this November.

I was struck by a remark made by Nan Henriksen towards the end of the meeting.  It was something along the lines of "I wouldn't want people to think that any of this was being done out of retribution."

I had a difficult time keeping down my dinner when I heard that.

The entirety of the current County charter movement is based on nothing but retribution. 

It is incomprehensible to me that any of this would be going on if the 2 to 1 Democrat majority that was in place until 2012 remained that way currently.

It simply wasn't that long ago that I can forget the strident opposition against the Charter movement by both the Democrat daily newsletter and the democrat party.  When the charter movement was initially up for consideration, and the County commission was under democrat control, this was the newspaper's take on it:

Cheers: To county commissioners for putting an end to the home rule charter process this year.Inspecting methods of government is always a good idea, but there was no demonstrated need to elect a slate of freeholders to, in essence, draft a county charter that would replace the current system. A series of meetings produced no discernible public interest in the process outside of the same handful of activists who have promoted a county charter for years, only to lose at the polls. Better to save the staff time and the estimated $100,000 it would cost to sponsor an election.

Of course, it wasn't "the commissioners," it was democrats Stuart and Boldt.  Both they and the local democrats were, accurately, as it turned out, terrified that a county charter would give rise to a countywide vote to torpedo the CRC Scam... and that had to be avoided at all costs. 

Since then, given the strident hatred of the Columbian organization towards the two remaining County commissioners and Sen. Benton, it seems they managed to find a way to get over their concerns.

Local Democrats on the other hand took a somewhat more end-of-the-world  approach:

Proposed changes in county charter could be awful

Clark County’s government structure is somewhat antique and outdated. A system invented to manage road construction and not much else in the way of governance clanks along clumsily in a high-speed era of complex and varied civic action. 

Streamlining and modernizing the machine appeals to the progressive psyche, but the folks who have convinced the Board of Clark County Commissioners to consider adopting a new county charter have other agenda priorities. 

They hope to give rural interests dominance over urban values. They suppose they can make it harder for county government to raise and spend money on social problems and infrastructure capital. 

They are far away from achieving their goals, but inattention from thoughtful citizens could ease their path.

Without much evident public support, the charter-change advocates have persuaded the county commissioners to start the ball rolling toward charter change for the third time in recent history. In January the board formally adopted a resolution to consider a move from the present form of government to something different. 

Different how? That depends entirely on a panel of elected freeholders and how ably they can sell their program. 

So far the county commissioners have ordained that, should the charter process go forward, each of the three commissioner districts will be represented by five freeholders who would be elected at the Nov. 8 general election. Any registered voter would be qualified to seek election to the board of freeholders. Upon their election the  ders would establish a schedule of hearings and meetings for the consideration of what might be included in a new county charter. Upon a majority vote by the freeholders, the Board of Clark County Commissioners would be obliged by tradition if not certainly by law to lay the proposed charter before the electorate.

Oddly, they, too, seem to have found a way to get past the terrifying reality that faced them had they simply gone forward with the Charter movement in 2011.

People who were in the crowd during last night's soiree have told me that members of the audience  complained loudly and longly off-microphone and off-camera as to Benton doing this or Benton doing that or Benton doing the other thing .

While I have long since ceased my admiration of Sen. Benton, at the end of the day this amounts to a legalized lynching, to quote Justice Thomas, and the entirety of this charter is nothing BUT "retribution."

For example at the C3G2 hate site, one of the fringe left nutters actually wrote:

The Freeholders have proposed a charter to negate cronyism, corruption, and incompetence...and start Clark County back to a path of good governance.

Would that same individual or any other leftist have written this during the halcyon days before Madore or Mielke were ever heard of?

Of course not.

So, do not be fooled. None of this is about what's best for the people of Clark County; in fact it's about what's best for leftist partisanship, damn what's best for the people of Clark County.

It's about hatred. It's about arrogance. It's about doing everything possible to ignore the will of the people when the will of the people happens to be at cross-purposes to your own.

Because if this was about what was best for the people of Clark County?

Then the only thing that they would've passed is the charter itself without any conditions excepting the inclusion of the right to countywide initiative.

Anything else is extraneous to that purpose. And if the charter contains anything but that, I will be voting no, and I will do all I can to urge everyone else to vote no.

But at the end of the day, the left will rabidly support this, because they see it as a way to neuter commissioners Madore and Mielke. And remember… That is the entirety of what this is about.

Because if it were, in fact, about so-called "good governance", then the same pigs would have supported the effort when they control the County commission back in 2011.