Category: local leaders

Categories
local leaders term limits

New Yorkers Won’t Take It Any More

Mayor Michael Bloomberg thought it would be easy to unravel citizen initiative rights in New York City.

He wants to stand for a third term, when New Yorkers have twice voted in support of a referendum limiting the mayor and city council members to two terms. Bloomberg’s second term ends November 2009.

Solution? Exploit a loophole that lets the city council revise the term limits law unilaterally. Council members had mumbled about doing this before, but Bloomberg always said he would veto any such attempt. We must, he said, respect the decision of the voters.

Once the mayor changed his mind, his task was simple. Just persuade a willing council to lengthen terms from two to three. Which they did. Problem solved.

Except . . . the uproar greeting Bloomberg’s betrayal of the voters has become enormous. And continues. Many voters showed up at the signing ceremony to berate him in person. So he had to squirm for a couple hours before scribbling his soiled John Hancock. There’s also a lawsuit under way to try to undo this undoing of lawful democracy.

And now a Brooklyn resident, Andre Calvert, has set up a Facebook page dedicated to the goal of defeating Bloomberg and the 29 city council members who voted to undermine the voters. Live in New York? Check it out. Maybe even if you don’t. The name of the profile is King Bloomberg III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders term limits

Putting Principles First

Some people have this idea that if the end is good then whatever means they choose must be good, too. But no. Principles matter — they exist to help us choose the right means and oppose the wrong ones.

Politicians tend to think unlimited terms in office is a good thing. I disagree, but forget that for a moment. What is the best way to settle the disagreement? Who should decide how long politicians serve?

The people, that’s who.

New York City’s mayor and City Council have opposed the term limits they live under, term limits voted into law by citizens.

So they got together and legislatively overturned the people’s decision, extending their own terms in office.

But not every politician who may like extended terms thinks that this was the way to obtain them. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum went on record before the council vote that, if the council overturned the term limits rather than sending it back to the voters again, she would not seek re-election.

“I think it’s wrong,” she said. “It would be wrong for me, feeling as strongly as I do, to run for a third term if [term limits are] overturned in a way that I don’t think is right.”

Immediately her political competitors breathed a sigh of relief. But citizens should sigh in appreciation. It is mighty good to see personal principles trump re-election frenzy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency local leaders

Transparency versus Stupidity

The Sunshine Review newsletter from the Sam Adams Alliance reports an amazing instance of bureaucratic dimwittery.

It seems that the county clerk in the county I grew up in — Pulaski County, Arkansas — also likes the idea of sunshine or “transparency,” or some distorted notion of it. Apparently, he is the kind of person who thinks that if people have “nothing to hide,” it’s okay to go traipsing door to door ripping curtains off living-room windows.

According to the Sunshine Review, this troublemaker “posted [to the Web] tens of thousands of circuit court records containing Social Security numbers and other personal data including bank account numbers, birth dates and check images.”

An outraged resident of the county, Bill Phillips, used the Freedom of Information act to obtain email records from the county clerk’s office. Bill has posted them at his own website, PulaskiWatch.com. In one of the posted emails, county clerk employees are advised to make sure to synchronize their “docuclocks.” Okay. In another email, we learn that someone named Ben is late because of a doctor’s appointment.

PulaskiWatch.com announces that it will remove these silly emails from public view just as soon as the county clerk’s office removes all the personal information from the Internet that is placing so many persons at risk of identity theft.

Good luck, people of Pulaski County. When your public servants don’t see why the personal should be kept private and the public realm open, you’ve got an uphill battle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders

The Day After

Not thrilled with the election results? Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the end of the battle.

Traipsing off to the polls every few years does not exhuast our duty as Americans. In addition to voting, we have to keep learning, stay informed about what’s happening in our government. We must also provide constant feedback, writing to newspapers and websites, or speaking out on your favorite talk radio program.

Citizenship means going further, too, joining with groups already fighting for accountability, or tackling problems ourselves by organizing friends, neighbors and co-workers. We can overcome abusive government policies and protect the right of citizens to speak out, to petition their government.

The national media may obsess with whatever is going on — or not going on — in Washington, but we don’t have to. We can look to the state and local arenas, where citizens are better able to reassert control over out-of-control government.

As early as next year this time voters can be deciding new statewide ballot measures in Ohio and Washington. Such measures crop up even sooner at the local level . . . but only if concerned citizens get together to do the hard work of petitioning reforms onto the ballot.

Politics can be more than a spectator sport. In fact, it must be much more than that if we aim to leave freedom and prosperity to our children and grandchildren, rather than bondage and debt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders

A Burr Under the Government Saddle

His name is not Dan Kramer Burr, it’s simply Dan Kramer. The “Burr” stands for what he is, metaphorically: “a burr under their saddle.”

The “their” stands for Delaware’s Sussex County Council.

I found out about Dan on SunshineReview.org, which not long ago honored him as Sunshine Troublemaker of the Week. A local paper’s profile on the semi-retired bean farmer filled in some fascinating details.

He sits near the back of the room, and, before meeting’s end, he stands up to introduce himself. “This is Dan Kramer,” he explains . . . but doesn’t really need to. In Sussex County he’s attended more meetings than even the elected officials.

The paper calls him an ombudsman . . . and that fits, for his telephone answering machine sports an interesting outgoing message: “Your problem is my problem,” it intones.

And, by going to every meeting, he can help. His voice carries weight.

He carries a copy of the Freedom of Information Act to every meeting. And he’s a stickler on a number of subjects. “People call me a watchdog,” he admits, but goes on to clarify: “I’m really a junkyard dog who will bite you in the gasket.”

My kind of troublemaker.

I hope you have someone like him in your area. If you don’t, the position is yours to take. According to Dan Kramer, the rewards are many.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency insider corruption local leaders

Learning from Sal Grosso

Sal Grosso, a retired man in his 80s, moved to Cape Coral, Florida, after a successful career as a troubleshooter for New York State’s phone network. Since then he has served as troubleshooter for the government of Cape Coral, writing a column, kicking up a fuss.

And boy, does Cape Coral need a troubleshooter! Sal has uncovered a whole network of incompetence and corruption in the water, sewer, and charter school bureaucracies.

After years of trying, he got the state to do an operational audit of the town — which is now under federal investigation.

While preparing a column about him for Townhall.com, I learned about Sal’s methods. He solves problems through a common-sense process he calls “sectionalization.” Start with a problem area, divide it in half. Determine which half holds the problem, focus on it and repeat.

“You keep whittling the problem down until you’ve isolated it,” he says, “to a very manageable size, which enables you to decide on where to look, and what to look for.”

He’s done this with the local water system, the city budget, sewer — you name it.

If you have a knack for problem solving — say, you like puzzles — then why not follow Sal’s example and give your local governments a look? Governments often present huge puzzles. Unravelling the messes that politicians and bureaucrats have made can be very rewarding.

Well, perhaps not so much. But it IS critical in keeping government accountable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets local leaders too much government

Gateway Capitalism

You’ve heard of “gateway drugs.” What about “gateway capitalism”?

The mayor of Clayton, California, apparently believes that two little girls selling zucchinis and melons by the roadside is the start of something bad.

The city cracked down on Katie and Sabrina Lewis’s veggie stand. Mayor Gregg Manning defended the bust, saying that “They may start out with a little card-table and selling a couple of things, but then who is to say what else they have. Is all the produce made there, do they make it themselves? Are they going to have eggs and chickens for sale next?”

Heavens! Capitalism run amok! Streetside vendors are to be allowed only when city governments run the show, as in the growing movement to establish old-fashioned day-markets. You know, Saturday Markets and Sunday Markets and the like.

But veggie stands, like dreaded lemonade stands, are illegal in Clayton.

You can understand the concern, I guess: Traffic problems. This police operation started off on one complaint. But most neighbors defend the stand, saying that traffic was never a problem.

So now 11-year-old Katie has gotten political. She circulated a petition to reopen the stand, and has lots of signatures. Best of luck to Katie and Sabrina, but I am afraid that the lesson you’ll really be learning isn’t about capitalism at all. It’s about bureaucracy.

And an awful void of common sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders national politics & policies

True Outsider Experience

John McCain’s choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate shocked a lot of people.

Even people in the media didn’t know very much about her. She hasn’t spent any time on Meet the Press, for example.

But I knew who she was long before her selection as Republican nominee for Vice President. That’s because Sarah Palin has real street cred as a reformer.

For starters, as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she followed through on her campaign promise to cut property taxes — by 40 percent.

Though a Republican, she has not hesitated to challenge Party bigwigs. She went after the state’s Republican Party chairman for ethics violations — violations he later admitted. She joined a Democrat in filing an ethics complaint against the Republican attorney general. He later resigned.

Then, in 2006, she ran against the incumbent governor of her own party, and by connection the whole corrupt GOP cabal in Alaska. And she won.

Today, Sarah Palin is the most popular governor in the country.

Of course, questions remain. Though she has taken on GOP leaders in her state, she has been friendlier to their pork projects than I like.

But while some belittle her experience, her readiness to be president, I say, think again: Twenty or 30 years of Washington experience disqualifies a candidate for the job.

Now, I don’t mean to speak ill of politicians . . . well, yes I do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders property rights

The Redding Alternative

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that it is constitutionally okay for states and towns to grab property for pretty much any reason at all, citizens have been trying to prevent governments from doing so.

The track record is spotty. Officials and private interests who like to grab private property are aware of public outrage over the court’s decision. So they often support “protections” against eminent domain abuse with loopholes you could drive a truck through.

In a recent California election, two alleged property-protection measures were on the ballot. Proposition 98 was the real deal. Proposition 99 was the fake. Unfortunately, the phony measure was the one that passed. It was the measure that had by far the most advertising, being bankrolled (you guessed it) by land-grabbing special interests.

Friends of property rights can eventually try another ballot measure. Meanwhile, voters and elected officials in towns and counties can act independently to protect property owners, as the town council of Redding, California, has done. By a majority of three to two, the council voted to forbid officials from grabbing property just to flip it to another private owner.

Redding Councilman Ken Murray, who proposed the new law, says he wanted “to make it really hard for some future councilperson to willy-nilly take property from one person and give it to another just to jack up our revenue.”

Great move! Let’s hope it works.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders

Look Homeward, Voter

Hillary is up; Barack is down. Or is that vice versa? Mike is up; Rudy’s down.

Many presidential campaigns have their ups and downs, until only one remains “up.”

But the real story is: you are up.

It’s now your turn. Vote!

But as sly economists and clever mathematicians like to remind us, no one voter usually makes a difference. Our votes may be counted (if we’re lucky), but they don’t count — not like our dollars do. We voters don’t decide elections, individually. Certainly not presidential elections, which are designed to tally up preferences from huge pools of voters; it’s the ratio of the divergent streams of those pools that decide elections. Our individual votes are like drops in the bucket.

But, closer to home, our power — even as individuals — increases.

There are fewer voters, locally, so when we convince a friend or neighbor of the wisdom of X, or the justice of Y, or the pure thrilling statesmanship of Z, our influence can really amount to something.

So, if you are concerned with, say, the growing instability of our non-invested national pension system (Social Security), keep tabs on the issue, keep asking questions, keep needling the complacent. But don’t stop there. Look closer to home. Have your county, city, or state politicians enacted non-invested or even unfunded pension systems?

They have in many areas around the country. And citizens have fought back. They’ve made a difference.

You can, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.