Please join me in voting “No” on the proposed County Charter because we, as freedom-loving Americans, choose to be the masters of our own government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Rather than choosing a professional government run by experts, we choose instead to entrust our elected county representatives with the power to govern our county and answer to the people that they serve.
Throughout history, whenever control was handed over to a professional, unelected government, the loss of checks and balances resulted in unrestrained, inefficient, unaffordable, and burdensome government.
Like our U.S. Constitution, for 125 years our State Constitution has blessed all 39 Washington counties with the timeless principles that continue to serve as the foundation of our effective, citizen-friendly representative county government. Our Constitutions are not obsolete, nor are our constitutionally-prescribed county governments outmoded. They are perfectly suited to grow with us as they have for much larger counties in our state.
Six Washington counties have opted for six different custom governments prescribed by unique Charters written by different people. Five of those counties now have:
• Less respect for property rights
• Larger governments
• Higher taxes
• More debt
• and more regulation.
Over 100 citizens registered for the chance to create a new custom form of government for Clark County called a Home Rule Charter. Fifteen were elected and called freeholders. They met once a week for five months to come up with a new form of county government from scratch. Eleven supported the Charter that turned out radically different than any other in our state. The minority strongly oppose the Charter. Clark County citizens must now choose to pass, or to replace our current form of county government with the proposed new form of government.
Once adopted, the ability of the people to quickly amend or repeal their charter is important to fix any problems. The people of San Juan County adopted a Charter government with six council members and then later reverted back to three. Like San Juan, Clark County too would need the ability to make timely corrections.
But there’s a problem. The language in this Charter would prevent the people from ever repealing it. It also prohibits the people from amending it by initiative and does not allow any amendments until a new process starts again five years after it was adopted. Our county would risk being exposed to significant problems without the ability to make timely amendments and without the freedom to ever revert back to our original constitutionally prescribed county government.
Here are some of the basics and the foreseeable problems with this Charter:
• Our present government provides an elected sheriff, auditor, assessor, treasurer, prosecuting attorney, clerk, and judges. Each official is entrusted with legislative powers to set their own policies and executive powers to determine how they will execute their office and select the leaders of their departments. Each official provides leadership and works to build healthy relationships with their staff to define effective processes and to build a culture that focuses on making their customers (the citizens) successful. All their staff is ultimately accountable to their elected official.
• County commissioners work in a similar way with the same powers but with more responsibilities. In addition, an appointed county administrator runs the day-to-day operations of the county now. (Mark McCauley is doing an excellent job as our county administrator.) About half of each commissioner’s time is spent providing “frustration relief” and solving problems with citizens that need help navigating through the many processes that can sometimes stall or become impractical. Commissioners periodically meet with the customer and appropriate staff to help resolve the difficulty and sometimes to identify and improve processes and county codes.
Each commissioner sits on 10-12 other governing boards, some in Clark County, some in up to five neighboring counties, one in Olympia. In addition, commissioners are continually working to prioritize resources, fulfill required obligations, and find more effective ways to find savings and serve citizens. The proposed Charter would change all of that. It’s like no other Charter on the West Coast.
The Charter would transfer all executive power now held by the three county commissioners to a newly-appointed county executive director with more authority than any other Charter county. That executive would make most of the board appointments that county commissioners currently make.
The Charter would eliminate full-time county commissioners and substitute part-time council members and insulate them from all staff except the executive. The role of council members would be reduced to asking the executive for information who can in turn seek information from staff. Council members would not be permitted to work with or consult with staff without the permission of the executive.
Council members would likely be less accessible to citizens since their positions would be part time, and they may need to work two jobs to make ends meet. Rather than leading and setting the agenda to make improvements, they would more likely show up for a meeting once every two weeks and find out what’s on the agenda.
As a current county commissioner, I can say that this is a full time leadership position. Without full time elected commissioners, professional staff and consultants would need to fill the leadership gap. Clark County in many ways currently leads the state in smart innovate customer-friendly efficient affordable government. It is safe to say that with only part time elected council members, our county’s performance would progressively decline.
There are other significant issues with this Charter. The bottom line is this: The Charter is not ready to be adopted. Your vote could change our county for this and future generations. I pray that enough of our neighbors will vote “No” on proposition No. 1 to preserve our healthy, stable, effective, and proven county government. God bless Clark County.
