No doubt pleased to once again get out from behind the wheel of dump trucks, former Clark County Commissioner Marc Boldt succeeded in his bid to climb back on top on the now Clark County Council created in the 2014 voter approved Home Rule Charter that now sees a 5 member Council over the 3 member Commission that existed before.
As has been said many times now, the Charter was promoted and approved because certain elements in the county did not appreciate seeing the Democrat Rule defeated in the 2012 election as was outlined in the blog post Motive Matters followed by What Changed in Clark County? and Yes, motive for charter matters.
For whatever reason, charter opponents chose to ignore the motives and it passed by a 7 point margin, creating the 5 member Council Marc Boldt has been elected to chair, a new position created in the charter.
I didn’t support Boldt, but I also didn’t blog against him, staying out of campaigns to let the hotheads currently ruling over the Clark County Republicans to succeed or fall flat on their own.
They failed miserably in my opinion.
But Marc Boldt did win with support from a breakaway segment of the CCGOP and Democrats as well, a segment of that party endorsing him over Democrat candidate, Battle Ground City Council Member Mike Dalesandro.
And as one would expect, Marc is very pleased as indicated in an email received this morning from Marc, WE did it!
Marc concludes the email with, “I am excited to serve the county again and look forward to healing the divisions and getting us back on track.”
I am disturbed by the sentence because some of the divisions now existing within the county came about because Marc chose for quite some time to ignore and turn a deaf ear towards constituents as he repeatedly sided with former Commissioner Steve Stuart in pushing ahead on the CRC light rail project voters indicated we did not want by defeating every last single funding measure put before us, he joined in with Stuart in promising us a vote on the light rail project itself, but opposed actually giving us that vote.
He initially joined in with Stuart to push for taxpayers to be on the hook for a baseball stadium that many indicated was not wanted, only switching at the last minute facing sanctions from the GOP as well as seeing the Vancouver City Council was not supportive of the notion.
There was more, but I think you get the drift.
So 2012 saw Boldt ousted and David Madore elected.
Madore has shown himself to be quite naïve politically and set about pushing for changes he felt was needed, but trying to do everything at once as well as facing stiff opposition from what we refer to as the “Downtown Mafia,” primarily the editor of Lazy C, ‘Lefty’ Lou Brancaccio.
As was done to Madore, many citizens will automatically see every effort by Boldt to undo anything Madore promoted as vengeance oriented, whether they should be repealed or not.
The Lazy C will no doubt laud Boldt with much praise, until he does something contrary to the wishes and desires of the ‘Downtown Mafia,’ then you can expect ol Lefty’s poison pen to light up the pages of the paper.
Most surprising will be those Boldt supporters that open their eyes and realize this chair position is nowhere near as powerful of a position as they expect.
From Section 2.2 B of the charter we read,
“The chair shall preside over council meetings and ensure the orderly and efficient conduct of council meetings. The chair, or his or her designee, will be the county’s spokesperson to articulate council policies, vision, strategies and plans; represent the county before the governor, state legislature and other state and federal agencies; meet and greet important visitors; supervise constituent response processes for the council as a whole; and serve as the county’s lead representative at dedications, ceremonial activities and other public events.”
Sorry Boldt supporters, but he is still only one vote out of a five member council.
I’ll also remind Boldt that he has chosen to step into a hornets’ nest of sorts.
You see, since this was a three way race with the Write-in Liz Pike effort, some 60% of the county voters that voted did not vote for you and they are as divided as any time before.
When you try to undo what Madore has accomplished because the Lazy C demands it, you will no doubt piss off many Madore supporters.
When you don’t try to undo his proposals, you will piss off many from C3G2 along with the Downtown Mafia.
You have a real tough row to hoe if you think you can easily solve the divisions so many citizens apparently do not want to see resolved.
You are already off on the wrong foot by indicating that the county is somehow diseased or injured and in need of your healing powers, since many also support Madore.
Fortunately we have Jeanne E. Stewart and now Julie Olson sitting on the council and I expect both ladies will do what they can to inject some common sense and decorum on the council. And if you decide to run roughshod over them, Marc, this blog will be on you like white on rice.
Sadly, it appears I was dead wrong on the two ladies I supported over the years as the very first meeting of the new county council has shown they are more interested in following lock-step with Marc Boldt, who has shown he is out for revenge more than anything else.
Frankly, I wonder if you have the ability to “calm the waters” of the county that you claim you possess.
You won; you did it, now it rests squarely on you to show you can do what you didn’t do before.
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