Down The Sewer Pipe – Politically Speaking

Governance is the almost art of governing, in this case the population of a country.  In our case we are talking about the community, city, county, township, state, or federal government. 

As we all learned in civics class in high school there are several broad types of governance.

• Dictatorships – one person or party in power forever – limited elections.
• Theocracy – GOD, or some other Religion in power – limited elections.
• Kingdom – One family in power – no elections.
• Monarchy – Government elected by the people but the ruler can take over – constitution sets rights and powers of the government and the monarch. – elections held every now and then.
• Direct Democracy – The people are the government and the most vote’s control – elections and constitution in place.
• Representative Democracy – the people are the government and they elect representatives to control legislative issues – constitution defines the powers – elections held on a regular basis.

The United Stated of America is a representative democracy that is we elect people to office and then they take care of the legislative and practical running of the government.  In some towns this looks like the Federal government that is the mayor is the executive, the council members are the legislative/quasi judicial branches.  Other cities or towns have a system where the mayor is actually part of the council and the council members are heads of departments, this is what we have in Portland Oregon. In all cases staff are hired to assist in the work of running things.

In our system, as in every system, avenues for abuse exist and one needs to be aware of them.  Deals made in “back room” sessions are decisions that are made out of the public eye.  Back room deals can and do cause issues in any government, town city etc. because they leave the people out of the decision process, as does the idea where the elected determine that they are elected to “take care” of the electorate and consulting the people is not necessary and servers no useful purpose. 

Uneven handedness is also possible and does lead to lawsuits when the people feel disenfranchised which leads to a control fight.  Who will control things, the elected persons or the people?  Lawsuits and or referendums ensue and the fight is on because the decisions were made in a cloak and dagger manner.  These sorts of things are noted when the elected officials place a charge on sewer bill that is unrelated the sewer, like road repair for instance.  The reason the elected official does not place this concept on a ballet is because they know it will be turned down and since they want the money for a purpose, repairing roads, they take a back door that is open because it isn’t forbidden.

Hallmarks of poor governance are: (not an exhaustive list).

• Unwilling ness to place issues on a ballet.
• Making fees cover more than the publicly stated one (road repair fee also going to bike lanes and stop lights which have nothing to do with road repair).
• Insisting that the elected people know more than others about what the solutions are.
• Placing community association comments above the comments of the electorate.
• Forming committees that do not represent a true cross section of the city, town, county etc. (most blue ribbon panels consist of “leaders” and have few if any “working” folks on them).

Hallmarks of good governance are: (not an exhaustive list).

• Asking the question “how is a person making 1/3 of the average wage going to afford this?
• Treating everyone the same (if the rich person can do this then the poor person can do this).
• Not setting fees for development or remodeling so high that a person making 1/3 of the average wage in the city, town, or county is unable to develop or remodel a property.
• Placing the electorate comments at the same level as the community association (one person one vote concept where the community association gets one vote not many).
• Insuring that laws do not unduly favor a cretin segment of society (pedal bikes given precedent over cars).

If governance is done badly then one will not be able to get reelected even as a dogcatcher, as in Mayor Tom Potter of Portland Oregon.  So he is not running for a second term because a majority of the people will not vote for him.

If governance is done well then all the laws made will be enforced equally with no person or group able to take advantage of another person or group.  In short if one neighborhood wants t prevent door to door sales and is actually able to do so then door to door sales can’t be done anywhere in the jurisdiction

Good governance is open to the point where the actual decision is made in the glare of the public eye.  More about that when we discuss political things and the decision making process.

Sherman