Lyle T Lamb I wasn't there that day so I don't know who was shouting. But, yes, regardless of the topic we should hear each other out.
KJ Hinton It wasn't "shouting" per se'... it was a concern that those elected in the room has their minds made up and, even though the people were speaking, they weren't listening.
"Hearing" the words of the people is only one part of the equation. Once heard, they need to direct... they need to be implemented. Being "heard" lacks any particular meaning or value if, once heard, those words are subsequently ignored.
Alex Reinhold So where does the money needed to fix roads come from. People can't bitch that roads suck and than not offer to pay for them to be fixed. If you don't want to pay taxes don't expect services.- Alex Reinhold The cost to ask the People is outrageous, luckily we can vote out the ones that screw up which is free. As much as people complain about south parkway you'd think they'd be glad to get it fixed
Brian Munson Or better yet, if you want to be heard, show up to more than 1 of your meetings. The council meetings aren't for 7 elected people to show up and drink coffee. They are there for the people to speak. Now, I don't show up to a whole lot, but when I do go...See More
Titus Maximus Government budget should be itemized and displayed publicly. Transparency is one of the ways to avoid corruption.- Alex Reinhold The cities budget is open and available to the public. The problem is "asking the people" can cost $10,000 to $15,000 per question. That why we need to hold our electeds accountable and vote them out if they don't do right. Everyone who says ask the people never has an answer as to how those costs should be paid, its easy to repeat a catchphrase but if you don't have a plan to execute it its all just meaningless words.
- KJ Hinton The reason that doesn't work, Alex is simple: when this stuff gets bonded out, voting these people out might make people feel better (After all, if I'm not mistaken, that's what happened to you) but it will not unfire the fiscal bullet aimed at their head.
Having been involved in elections for some almost 3 decades now, I say that the cost of an election is no more a reason NOT to hold one to gauge the will of the people then the cost of a public defender is a reason to do away with them.
"Cost" is never an excuse to ignore the will of the people. For some... including you, apparently, it's used as an excuse for those elected to ignore the people who put them there under some bizarre and nebulous construct that their (your) judgment is superior to the will of those you work for.
It isn't.
And in an issue like this, where the expressed will at that town hall meeting was both obvious and unambiguous, the idea that an elected official can cavalierly ignore that will is anathema. It's the kind of arrogant stupidity that brought us the CRC Scam, that's bringing us the BRT rip off, and that will rape us financially in the future as well.
If you are not going to listen if you get the job, then you need to make that clear as a part of your election campaign. Make "I don't give a damn what you think" the center-piece of your campaign and see if you're elected. - Alex Reinhold If electeds are expected to "ask" on every pertinent question than we need to figure out a way to make that cost reasonable, 10 grand or more is a colossal waste. You haven't presented a way to ask and provide for those costs.We both know the "will of the people" is a hollow catchphrase, LaCenter outlawed pot against the will of the people and no one cries about that. The FACT is there is a cost to ask the people and until you figure out a way to get that cost down to make is financially viable, your point is moot. We as the voters have to get off our asses and do our work like we are obligated to, just as elected needs to go do their job and try to figure out what people want.
- KJ Hinton If necessary, cut employee pay to make it up.
See, Alex, THAT is not MY job. I bet if the city took up a collection to pay for the costs (which are no where near what you claim, by the way) the money would appear like magic.
(If, for example, this idiotic bill ever passed and the county implemented it, I'd be out another $200 per year. I'd donate big money to keep that from happening, since it will amount to thousands over the life of the bonds)
If you don't like the standard, then don't take the job. YOUR job as an elected is to FIND a way. and if you can't, then guess what?
That STILL doesn't give you the right to ignore the people who have made their positions clear.
I really don't give a damn about what La Center did or didn't do: further, outlawing the sale of pot has no permanent lasting effect and if the people don't like it they can vote those people out without paying for that decision for decades... unlike the bonding for these projects.
Getting the will of the people is NEVER moot. EVER. That you think it is?
Well, good luck ever getting elected to anything ever again. 
- Alex Reinhold KJ simply repeating a meaningless catchphrase and calling it politics is poor reasoning. It costs a lot of money to put an issue on a ballot so the people can vote and let their wills be known. Years ago when I was on council and we looked at doing that the cost was about $11,000. I'm not 100% sure but I'd wager those costs haven't gone down any. Maybe for you that isn't a lot of money but to me it is, we need to get that cost down if we want people to vote and let their voices be heard on more issues. And no cowardly advisory votes like the county did, make those votes binding and the issue is solved. Keep the cost to a thousand bucks or so and than were talking
- KJ Hinton I didn't say anything about making this vote advisory. But the overarching element here isn't cost, or whether any vote would be advisory (which again, I never indicated I wanted OR supported.)
It's that you and those like you don't want to know.
Because if you knew the people opposed it, then you'd have few options available when it came to the issue of ignoring them.
This way, you can make this kind of bogus excuse and lock this debt down for years to come, win or lose at the election box.
Don't ask them first and why, you can do whatever the hell you want... people be damned.
And, BTW, you asked for ways to pay for this and I've provided them. What's your excuse now if it isn't that you and the others like you simply don't give a rat's ass what the people want?
And you call "$11,000" a "lot of money?" What about the MILLIONS your effort here would be vacuuming out of our wallets?
Compared to that, it isn't even bubble gum money. - Alex Reinhold KJ your refusal to listen is your issue. I wish I were rich like you and 10 grand meant nothing. The will of the people is a false argument, Lincoln went against the prevailing will of the people and did the emancipation proclamation, yet now we know it was the right thing to do. For me if you want multiple issues, say anything where it will make the taxpayers spend extra money. 10 grand a pop is a large sum. I'm not sure if having multiple issues decreases the costs or not. I have no objection to following what voters say and since contacting electeds is too much for most voters, a vote makes sense. What I don't want to see is tens of thousands of dollars poured into the elections department. I don't that is unreasonable. We, as in the people, needs to find a more cost effective way to do that than what we have now. Until than a lot of politics is a guessing game, do the four or five people who speak at a meeting represent the will of the people? What if the people who come to testify aren't in the voting jurisdiction? That happened a lot with the whole CRC thing, where Oregonians would come and testify. Do those opinions matter? Its not as black and white as you make it out to be.
- KJ Hinton There's something odd about the lengths people will go to to justify their disdain for the basis of our democracy... aka, The Will of the People. Your spiel here sounds like something Mussolini would crank out... because, after all, he made the trains run on time.
Until we bombed them, anyway.
I pointed out several ways to raise the money, which you had given zero thought to because, apparently, like most in government you have no interest in allowing the will of the people you allegedly work FOR to supercede YOUR will.
Yes, Lincoln did that. It's a poor comparison, however, given that he ran on a platform of unification... so the folks knew exactly what they were getting when they elected him.
Further, I reiterate: those who share your view are part and parcel of why government is so completely screwed up at so many levels. If in this case, under your bizarre idea of ignoring the people in your deliberations were, somehow, some sort of utopia where everything worked and no one was getting screwed, then I could, perhaps, see your view.
But that's not the reality we face. You want to take a substantial amount of money out of my pocket for a project that YOU believe needs to be done. Since YOU, in this figurative case, work for ME, you had better, by God, ask.
You have presented nothing to support your Stalinist view, and you'll forgive me if I disagree and, henceforth, do everything I can to keep you and those who unfortunately think like you, out of government, won't you?
Meanwhile, I again suggest that our government would look oh so much different if people like you would state repeatedly as a part of their campaign that you really don't care what we think, that once we have the misfortune of electing you, all bets are off and you don't need to listen or be responsive in any way to the people you would govern.
Those who view governance through the prism of arrogance can find any number of reasons to ignore the people, as you have. None of them provide any justification for that position, but then, your defeat as an incumbent likely sent you that message... even if you refuse to acknowledge it.
Fini.
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