The upcoming Primary Election will be your only chanct to vote on the recommendations made by the Local Government Study Group (LGSG). For whatever reasons, they decided to put this on the Primary ballot in June rather than the General Election ballot in November.
No matter what you think of this group, their work or their recommendations, you voted for and funded this effort and I encourage you to make a special effort to become familiar with their recommendations and to vote on them. After all, it is your county government.
Two of the issues are: Commission size – 5 or 3 – and length of term – 4 or 6 years.
I’ve read the minutes of several of the LGSG meetings but was only able to attend one – in Darby. Attendance was light, maybe 10 people. But although they were of all different political stripes, everyone had the same concerns: accountability and redress.
Over and over again we see that some people will say or do anything to get elected and once in office, they seem to forget who voted them in and why. They act as though they aren’t accountable to their constituents – community, friends, neighbors.
And when we’re unhappy with them, it often takes a long, long time before we even get a chance to vote them out.
I find it interesting that our current commissioners and most of the wannabes want to go back to 3 commissioners and extend their term to 6 years. We went to 5 commissioners and 4 terms precisely so that we could vote in a new majority more often. Six-year terms would essentially double down on us being stuck with their bad decisions – think Legacy Ranch, airport plan, etc. It’s a concentration of power in the hands of even fewer people who have demonstrated time and time again that YOU don’t matter. Once in office the last group and the current group have made decisions directly against what the voters want. They have continually catered to special interests – either their own or some group who has quite a bit of money.
It’s hard to judge the character of people who seem to be comfortable with lying to your face while they smile and pat you on the back, and then encourage you to get out your wallet. A more in depth vetting process would help us, the voters, quite a lot but there doesn’t seem to be much push for that. So whatever we can do to minimize the damage the commissioners can do seems to be a good idea. Unless, of course, you’re happy with your taxes going up and up, not for infrastructure projects and the good of the community but to pay for fines and lawsuits brought on by their bad decisions.
Please do vote, but know who and what you’re voting for. Our founding fathers determined that a well functioning democracy depends on an informed and engaged populous. Please learn what’s at stake and where the candidates stand. Don’t just look for the letter after the name and blindly check that box.
Mark Van Loon
Hamilton