My Reflector letter to the editor on the Charter

This November, you face a choice with lifetime implications: should you vote for or against the Charter?

I say “lifetime implications” because legally, if this charter is adopted, it’s permanent and can never be removed.  To me, that reason by itself is enough to earn a “no” vote, but in everything else from the motive behind this effort to the lack of accountability because we lose our countywide vote on the commissioners, this effort should be rejected.

Before you vote, please take the time to read Marvin Case’s analysis of what this Charter will cause, the worthlessness of initiative/referendum process that requires 37,000+ signatures just to get an amendment to the charter on to the ballot and the long list of important questions that the Charter… and law… says we can’t even ask or vote on.  Get the charter and carefully read Section 7.2 Initiative.

Almost every important thing we COULD vote on is denied us.  How does this benefit in any way?  And the fallback position that it’s “better than what we have now,” is absurd with the impossibility of getting 37,000+ signatures in 150 days unless you can buy the signature gatherers like you’re some rich union or something.

Motives do matter.  When I look at who supports this and who’s funding it, I see a Who’s Who of militant CRC supporters. None of them cared what we wanted when that project was active… why would they or should they care now?  Why is what we want and what’s “best” for us now so important when they rabidly rejected those concerns a few short months ago when the CRC/Light Rail project was still “alive?”

Their desire for revenge against the conservative commissioners who opposed their CRC project is no justification to rip up a government structure that former Commissioners Morris and Pridemore found perfectly acceptable when THEY were commissioners.

Get a copy of the charter.  Study it carefully.  Or in the interim, just take Marvin Case’s word for it:

“As I wrote last week, those who are so anxious to change the way county government works should remember that the goal is to design a system of government that is effective, efficient, in the public interest, and able to endure over time. Changing the structure of government based on the personalities of those in office at any one time would be a mistake.”