Bad water is the only possible explanation for the continuing
quality of decision-making exhibited by county officials.
Take the board of supervisors, for example. There is the
campaign finance non-reform business the supes put on the
table.
Bad water is the only possible explanation for the continuing quality of decision-making exhibited by county officials.
Take the board of supervisors, for example. There is the campaign finance non-reform business the supes put on the table. By itself, political campaign finance reform is a noble idea. In practice, however, the cure is always worse than the disease. And what the supes have pushed forward on a benign public is nothing more than the Incumbents Surefire Reelection Act. The spending limits, to coin a phrase, just limit the ability of non-incumbents to counter all the free publicity that officeholders receive just from being in office. So good luck to anybody trying to knock an incumbent county officeholder out of office.
Also, the supes seem to have some trouble when it comes to hanging on to any individual whom the board appoints to the county’s top staff position. In just the last few months two guys have been in the position. One literally went to lunch and never came back. His replacement lasted about as long as Matt Herges does coming out of the Giants bullpen.
Then the supes meet one day and take action to strip the County Registrar of his authority to supervise county elections. As expected, the registrar has not taken kindly to the supes expressed desire to leave him in charge of counting paper clips instead of votes. Now the supes are defending themselves from charges that they violated the Brown Act by meeting in closed session to rewrite the registrar’s job description.
Did not, claim the supes. Did, too, says the registrar.
The Brown Act, by the way, is the state law that regulates meetings of groups like the supes. You know, publishing an agenda and giving notice to the public about what will be considered at a specific meeting. The act’s intent is to make government decision-making transparent. Transparent government is, of course, a cornerstone of democracy as opposed to places around the planet where the head guy can say that Wednesday is really Thursday and if you don’t like it, tough stuff.
The supes have done everything but claim they ran out of paper or the copy machine was out of toner as they try to duck charges that they thumbed their collective nose at the Brown Act.
At least the supes are consistent in the quality of their decision-making. But, in the end, a lot of consistent iron-headed decisions are still just a lot of iron-headed decisions. As some wit said a long time ago, a decision is what a guy makes when he can’t get anybody to serve on a committee. Which brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s comment that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Come to think of it, no wonder the supes can’t find a person willing to serve for longer than a coffee break as the county’s administrative officer. It’s like the supes hiring slogan is “Come on Down! We’re a little weird, but the weather’s great!”
Then there’s the sitcom at the DA’s office where convictions are down, plea bargains are up, some of the staff has filed a lawsuit against the DA, and the DA’s management style has, to say the least, come under fire. The DA says plea bargains with bad people are up because the office is understaffed. And he’s hired a lawyer to fight the lawsuit. Sooner or later the DA will be asking the county to pay his legal bills, claiming the things of which he is accused, but didn’t do, occurred during office hours. Well, who knew?
Some among the discerning public think the DA ought to be Gray Davised. Davis was governor until about a year ago when he was recalled from office.
One of the charges used successfully against Davis was that he let political contributions influence his decision-making. His replacement, the movie muscle guy, said he would say no to special interests. Subsequent actions by the new governor tend to render the statement null and void since he’s raising political contributions from the evil special interests at the rate of over $750,000 a week while he considers which bills he should sign into law. But as Oscar Wilde said about consistency…Stop the press, I already used Wilde’s line.
Maybe the supes should hire a plumber to get to the bottom of how bad water influences public decision-making. Or, in the case of the registrar, non-public decision-making.
So the stand-up act that is the DA’s office may not be the funniest show in town.
The public can always go watch the supes make a decision. But only if the public can get into the meeting.
