Should we have three commissioners or five? The real question is, should we let the people decide? If we look carefully at the events since the last people’s decision I think we would have to agree that the people made a bad decision last time in expanding to five.
The people’s opportunity to make a decision this time will surely slip away under the cloak of the County Attorney’s mantle. The County Attorney who has 21 days to approve or disapprove of the ballot referendum is not going to let his elected cohorts suffer the consequences of the people’s current opinion. One of his cohorts has already deserted the five-man board. Besides, the County Attorney owes the Commissioners for their actions in bailing him out of the unsavory situation of the Chief Deputy County Attorney’s termination of office.
I believe in the people making decisions regarding how the government should be run. After all, isn’t that democracy? I think you have to consider all the ballot referendum decisions the people have voted for over the past several years. I think it is safe to say that all of them were either overturned by the Legislature or the Supreme Court. I think the elected officers’ mantra is, “Let the people vote in anything they want, we will take care of it with either a court or legislative action.” Sorry, folks, that’s just the way it is. I don’t know why it would change.
If the people want to have a vote on three or five commissioners, the people should start their ballot referendum now for the 2014 election. I feel certain the County Attorney’s office can’t stall that long. Who knows, maybe by then some more commissioners will have deserted their posts and we might like the substitutes better.
Please don’t forget to go to the polls and vote on what we can vote on in November 2012. There are some new people running for the commissioner’s office. You might elicit some change with those votes.
John W. Robinson
Corvallis