Stateside Associates Listed 2012 “Best Local Politics Blog”
Click image for list
As this blog and others have been saying, the Home Rule Charter has absolutely nothing to do with any so-called “Good Governance,” but is wholly about Commissioner Madore, now admitted to in Charter Yes latest ad
It is ludicrous to want to change government every time someone wins an election you do not like. We would never have any sort of government.
You can save Clark County from this Democrat power grab by voting NO on the Home Rule Charter
I don’t know if that’s a good sign that they are willing to at last tell the truth about the reason for the charter. Has anyone conducted a poll showing results that would be giving them this confidence? Well, at any rate the next time some pro-charter advocate says ‘it’s not about Madore’, I’ll just provide them this link.
Wow that is really just… wow.
As I’ve said before, the proposed charter is to change the government because of David Madore and Tom Mielke. This is not a good reason for change. The charter is not well written, and once passed almost impossible to change. Most liberals believe that more government is good. By adding more government you increase the cost to the taxpayer.
Please vote NO on the proposed charter. It will cost a bundle and the result will be worst than could ever be imagined.
Charlie Stemper
The man that should be our mayor ^. Sadly, they left out term limits and didn’t lower the threshold for amending the charter and if I remember correctly, Briggs said if we don’t like the charter, we can go back to the old system which was false as section 7.2 (I believe) says the charter cannot be repealed via I and R and the case in King County said the state supreme court said the charter could not be repealed.
Under what possible conditions should the 1889 small-commission form of government *ever* be changed?
Whatever conditions there are, none should be because you dislike who won the last election.
Elected officials are temporary. This charter is permanent, we’ll be stuck with a flawed form of government that has been admitted by supporters who believe it will “fized” after passed.
Shades of “we first must pass the bill to discover what is in it.”
As someone who was born and raised in Clark County, I’ve heard talk of a home-rule charter for all of my adult life, and very similar ideas keep coming up, with more precision and refinement each time. It seems pretty much inevitable that Clark County shall more toward a home-rule charter at some point, and that it will be very similar to those passed by the other, more populous counties. This one seems a good one, and certainly incorporates all the things that Madore and Mielke and Silliman and the county GOP had argued for until very recently.
Do we pass one at 500,000 people? The next time that Dems have a majority? Will current folks who were previously for a charter and one containing the four key elements that Silliman campaigned for be willing to permanently renounce any home-rule county charter ever?
I’m honestly curious, given the total 180 around this issue that has occurred in the past year among Madorites.
First of all, you will be hard pressed to find past support for any such total transformation from me.
In spite of differences from opponents, I have no problem with increasing to 5 commissioners. And that does not require this radical transformation of government.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I do not speak for Madore or any of his supporters. You might think I support him, but I more support the office he now occupies, not so much him.
This Charter has been sold as being about improving governance and that is apparently a lie. Pridemore told the Editorial Board it was not in reaction to anything and I posted video of him offering it as an alternative to the recall effort y’all couldn’t achieve. Still, it has been maintained by many that it had nothing to do with Madore and now, supporters produce an ad featuring only Madore, pointing complaints directly at him.
That is a very bad reason to promote such a radical transformation of government.
Laird is wrong, Madore did not expose any flaw, he hired someone more hated by Democrats than he is.
And that is all this is about. A means Democrats hope to give them a permanent one-party rule to do as they please and the other half of the county can go to hell, but pay for the programs.
The lie of “good governance” is exposed now.
Present something besides we hate being the minority or we hate who won the election and then, maybe we can talk.
But you need to learn, the right is entitled to fair representation of our views too. We aren’t quite the Soviet Union yet.
I have never been in support of home rule for Clark County. As they say, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. That as I see it is the failure of Clark County liberals – they want to “fix” something that is clearly functional and has functioned just fine for over 100 years. In this case they also see it as a golden opportunity to achieve permanent Democrat rule in Clark County.
Actually, what Leftists say is; “if it ain’t broke, break it.”
(Think of all the possibilities this creates for raising taxes, spreading the wealth around and government to the rescue).
As an escapee from California (a little over 2 years ago), I can testify to the horrors of a “manager” type county government. My previous residence “board of supervisors” consisted of 5 individuals elected from separate districts (no at-large positions). It also has a “county administrator” as the new charger proposal suggests from Clark County. However, the rules of my previous county (with a population of about 1.1 million residents) give these duties to the board:
– Appointing most County department heads, except elected officials, and providing for the appointment of all other County employees
– Providing for the compensation of all County officials and employees
– Creating officers, boards and commissions as needed, appointing members and fixing the terms of office
– Awarding all contracts except those that are within the authority delegated to the County Purchasing Agent
– Adopting an annual budget
– Sponsoring an annual audit made of all County accounts, books, and records
– Supervising the operations of departments and exercising executive and administrative authority through the County government and County Administrator
– Serving as the appellate body for Planning and Zoning issues
– Serving as the County Board of Equalization (the Board has created an Assessment Appeals Board to perform this function (This is a property tax-related aspect of California county governance.)
I notice that these functions are mostly EXCLUDED under the proposed charter that emasculates the powers of the elected County Commissioners. Currently, voters can “show their wrath” should Commissioners fail to satisfy the voters. And that is exactly what the lefties are upset with — they were tossed off the Commission because they didn’t pay enough attention to the voter’s desires.
I also note that this form of governance (as practiced in my previous home county) has allowed public worker’s unions to have an undue influence on the outcomes of county policies. The biggest example is an “improved” retirement program for retiring county workers, that is estimated to bankrupt the county in the next 5 to 10 years (unless changed). California already has had 2 counties go into bankruptcy (and several cities and school districts) go into bankruptcy, so this is not a unlikely situation.
One of the most refreshing aspects of my move to Clark County is that it has a County Commission that really has some power to mold the county’s operations. I truly would hate to see that power be drained away to unaccountable bureaucrats. Even with the powers that my previous county board had … they all too often “bought” the claims from the “professional administrator” who has generally nurtured an ever larger government (until it runs into the upper limits of the budge process).
