Mary Souza’s Newsletter 
That’s the bottom line on the changes proposed by Kootenai County Commissioners Dan Green and Todd Tondee. They would like us to give away our right to vote for the Assessor, Treasurer, Coroner and Clerk, which will remove many of the checks and balances built into the current system.
Commissioner Green said, at the debate on this topic which was held at the library last evening, that our quality of government depends on who is in office; if we have good people, we’ll have good government. The flip side of that, of course, is that if we have inadequate/bad/corrupt people, we’ll have terrible government.
My response to Dan, as we talked before the debate started, was that the structure of government must have a separation of powers, checks and balances that protect the citizens from inadequate/bad/corrupt officials. But Dan wants more efficiency.
As a business owner, I understand his desire for a smooth, streamlined process. But as a community activist of many years, my eyes have been opened to the creative, insidious ways that incompetent or unscrupulous public servants can rip off the public.
We, the people, need the protection of the perhaps less-than-efficient, redundant systems, and the sometimes testy, independent peer-level elected officials. They may grapple over their powers or territory and it might get messy. But at least they aren’t all sitting quietly, nodding their heads in unthinking approval at everything presented by those who will be their bosses under the new system, the County Administrator and the Commissioners.
The County Clerk is in charge of elections, as well as many other departments. Last night the question was posed: Would you want the person in charge of counting the votes in the Commissioners’ elections to be beholden to them for his/her job?
The County Coroner is the only person who can ever arrest the Sheriff. Would you want the Commissioners to be able to threaten their job? The Coroner also investigates deaths. What if there was a death related to a Commissioner, or what if there was a negligent death caused by a County employee? Would the pressure be on to avoid consequences or a lawsuit by covering the facts? The balance of these independently elected positions is important. But we, the voters, are ultimately responsible for the quality of people in these offices.
Dan Green alluded to this responsibility as a problem last night, when he said that the only oversight of these elected officials is from the voters, and that we keep re-electing the same people. Dan is right. We must be more deeply involved; we must ask more questions and demand on-line information and reports. And, if we don’t think we have the best person in office, we should find and support new people to run for that elected position. We all realize, after the past several years nationally and locally, that we cannot be complacent anymore.
The second major part of the proposed ballot measure to change the County is adding the new position of Administrator (also called County Manager). This person would be hired by the Commissioners and would answer to them. The Administrator would be in charge of almost everything. Resolution 2012-88, passed by Dan Green and Todd Tondee, lists the powers of the new Administrator and I will paraphrase them for you here:
–General supervision of the administrative functions of the county.
–Enforce all ordinances, resolutions and contracts of the Board. (There was a great deal of concern about this one, at the debate last night, because of the new, highly controversial land use ordinances, their enforcement and possible penalties.)
–Keep the Board informed about everything and do anything the Board asks.
–Prepare and submit an annual budget and fulfill the duties of the budget officer.
—“Exercise the executive authority of the county to appoint, supervise, suspend and remove county personnel and make nominations and appointments to advisory boards and committees.” (this one is verbatim from the Resolution)
The Resolution goes on the detail that the 3 Commissioners, the Sheriff and the Prosecutor will continue to be elected positions but the Treasurer, Assessor, Coroner and Clerk will no longer be elected. They will be “appointed by the County Manager (Administrator) with the advice and consent of the Board of County Commissioners, (and) be supervised by the County Manager…”
Dan Green told me that if the Treasurer, Assessor, Coroner and Clerk remain elected positions, he’s not in favor of having an Administrator. He said it would not solve the problems. I’m assuming that’s why he and Todd Tondee rolled this all together as one ballot measure.
The final, and quick, point I want to make is that there’s big money pushing this change in the County. According to the Sunshine Report of the group “Streamline Kootenai County”, they’ve raised more than $26,000 from contributors that are well-connected, big business and banking people in our area.
It’s so tempting to think that government can be run like business. And in many ways, government can learn important lessons from business, like the value of customer service, cooperative communication, project sharing, etc.
But what Dan Green does not seem to get is that people do not, and should not, inherently trust their government. It is a deliberately adversarial relationship. So the structure of government must be different than business; government must have multiple built-in redundancies and balances of power so the integrity of the outcome does not depend solely on the honesty of the individuals in office. It needs to be a fail-safe system, if you will. And the people of our community have good reason to be cautious. We need more, not fewer, checks and balances.
In 1890, Founding Father and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay wrote, “The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.” Those are wise words, so I choose not to give up my right to vote for the Assessor, Treasurer, Coroner and Clerk. I will vote NO on the “Optional Commission-Manager Form of County Government Ballot Measure.”
Have a great Halloween evening!
Mary
The big question is “Where is Jai Nelson ?”
She has been a no show for many votes and meetings.
If she can not be a part of the meetings she should step down.
I think she did not understand the commitment needed to represent us.
Comment by Jullee — October 31, 2012 @ 4:45 pm
“Where is Jai Nelson?”
The boys on the Board are hoping Jai will be their County Manager, therefore, she has kept out of the ….
More to come, this is an issue I take great interest.
Comment by old dog — October 31, 2012 @ 8:16 pm
Putting aside the pesky requirements of the Idaho Constitution (a task entrusted to our First District Court Judges who seem to do it quite easily when it suits their political purposes), if professional appointed officials are superior to elected officials, then why not extend the appointment authority of a county manager to the prosecutor, the sheriff, community college trustees, and the district court judges? For that matter, why not just do away with elections and let the County Commissioners and all other elected officials bid on their positions at auction? One need only look at the elected cast of clowns in those positions now to see that surely we could do better.
The answer to my admittedly insincere suggestion is that how an unsuitable candidate is selected for office makes little difference when and if the candidate is already prone to disregarding the law, the will of the people, or if the candidate has already been compromised prior to selection. Taking the ballot out of the hands of the voters will make it far more difficult to remove an unsuitable public official. The ballots (either election or recall) are the easiest ways to give the voters an opportunity to correct bad mistakes or failures of duty.
In 2010 we had an example of how an inept and lazy county clerk who had violated election laws by failing to properly account for absentee ballots was thrown out of office as a result of the information uncovered during the election contest lawsuit. He would still have been county clerk today if the decision to fire had been left to a county manager selected by crony county commissioners. But it wasn’t left to cronies — it was left to the power of the ballot in the hands of the people. (For that reason alone, the election contest lawsuit was a total and complete success.)
While we as voters are often imperfect in our selections, regularly subjecting public officials to election scrutiny by even a low percentage of voters is far preferable to leaving the staffing decision to a county manager and two out of three county commissioners. It’s far more difficult to bribe or coerce a few thousand voters than a corrupt county manager. Conversely, it’s far easier to install a hired, corrupt county manager than to deceive or coerce a few thousand voters.
Kootenai County voters should never surrender the power of the ballot.
Comment by Bill — November 1, 2012 @ 7:09 am
What we should really address here is that Dan Green has pushed this as his agenda from the start. He has a write-in candidate but that person is not well known and has virtually no chance of defeating him.
On the other hand and in Todd Tondee’s case, I ran a campaign against him in 2008 were I was his only challenger and lost in the primary by 939 votes, which worked out to only a 5.3% difference.
The primary race for District 1, County Commissioner, had 4 candidates challenging the incumbent which handed the election to Tondee. It is interesting that 2 of those candidates ran in previous times as Democrats. Everyone wanted to be a Republican because they thought winner would take all on May 15th.
Here’s some facts:
I WAS a Republican Candidate for District 1, County Commissioner in 2008.
I WAS a Republican Candidate for District 1, County Commissioner in 2012.
I AM a Write-in Republican Candidate for District 1, County Commissioner in this General election. That’s consistency and the desire to serve the public!
I AM the only Commissioner Candidate “Officially Endorsed” by the Kootenai County Deputy Sheriff’s Association and supported by many county employees.
I AM opposed to changing our form of government now just like I was in 2008!
WHY WOULD YOU VOTE for a candidate that supports this position? Todd Tondee does support this change to a County Manager and appointed positions versus elected, just like he did in 2008!
ELECT COMMON SENSE
TIM HERZOG
Write-In Candidate, District 1, County Commissioner
http://www.herzog4taxpayers.com
“It’s time for a positive difference”
Comment by Tim Herzog — November 1, 2012 @ 8:18 am
I talked with Commissioner Nelson a few days ago on the phone about her no vote on the proposed reorganization of county government. She is for a manager form, not just this one, however. She prefers a 5 member board and also did not agree with the ballot language.
On the questions of absence from commissioner work, Todd Tondee told me that she has dealt with a lot of family and personal health issues the last 2 months or so. I know her dad passed on late this summer. Just thought I would pass this along for whatever it is worth to shed light on the questions.
Comment by Gary Ingram — November 1, 2012 @ 3:00 pm
Gary,
Thanks for the explanation about Nelson.
In 2007 I wrote a Whitecaps post entitled No Gold Star for Brad. For the two year period I examined, 2005-2007, Jordan had a 41% rate of absenteeism from the CdA Planning Commission and a 40% rate from the LCDC. My post was highly critical of him, deservedly so, and I said he needed to resign or be removed.
I believe the same course of action is close to being appropriate for Nelson as well. My reasoning is the same for both:
I noticed in today’s skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press, that SD 271 Trustee Jim Purtee has chosen to resign from the board because, “It is my priority at this stage in my life to place personal health and family above all else.” This was obviously the action of a responsible person who has his priorities in order and who just as obviously cared deeply about the continuation of effective representation on the school board of trustees.
Comment by Bill — November 1, 2012 @ 3:48 pm
In other words, the county prosecutor who is not fulfilling the statutory duties of his office, the most recent example being his failure to represent the County Clerk in the pending court action with Judge Mitchell, should resign/withdraw his name from the ballot? Is it even legal for an elected county official to hire, and pay for out of budgeted monies, a private attorney without first obtaining a formal approval from the County Commissioners?
Comment by up river — November 1, 2012 @ 5:23 pm
Reviewing the campaign financial reports for Streamline Kootenai County and the reports filed by Concerned Businesses of No. Idaho reveals the following:
1. SKS filing for the October 10 Pre-general Report shows that $10,000 was received from CBNI but the CBNI report for both the October 10 and the 7 day Pre-general Report does not show that contribution. Why did CBNI not report that???
2. Also the 7 day Pre-general Report for SKC shows an in-kind contribution of $1300.00 from the CDA Press for advertising. The Press gave away free space to SKC???
What is gong on here anyway.
Comment by Gary Ingram — November 2, 2012 @ 11:34 am
It is true that Green and Tondee want to “Streamline” County government. Although, for Whom and for What end-result is really the jist of the argument. Green has said (and Tondee will repeat after a “tap on the foot” from Green) that they made campaign promises to “The Voters” to make government “better” and more “efficient”.
This is like saying that their job as a County Commissioner is always fair for “all the public” benefit”—or like saying during campaigning that that their opponents (through omission) will make government worse and less efficient, so—therefore, elect Me.
Sometimes pandering for votes is just that, pandering.
Whereas, sometimes spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars (through County staff payroll and legal cost) combined with other tens of thousands of dollars contributed by special interest ($30K and rising) spells trouble in my book and should be looked at from afar. Or from the other side of the table, if the two proponent Commissioners really represented “the voters” why the need to form a political action committee and accept big $ from just a handful of “voters” who for the most part represent big development businesses?
If Green and Tondee’s overt efforts to make county government more accountable and “efficient” for all of the citizens and all the “voters” within the County—their initiative should have stood it’s own ground without campaign contributions (over many years) and the more immediate need to hire lobbyist/public relations firms. Perhaps they’re lining up a cause to hire a County financed PR Consultant like Spokane and Coeur d’Alene (bite tongue in cheek Bill).
To Basics: If the “streamlined” version of reorganization succeeds, we need to look beyond Green, Tondee, and even Jai Nelson because they are as temporary as their predecessors—who also soon after getting in office found out how volatile, time consuming, and mentally demanding it is to be a KC Commissioner. In order to evaluate the major changes being proposed, voters need to realize that it only takes two County Commissioners to override even the most logical, rational, legally defensible and/or transparent third Commissioner. This is the Lawsuit-to-Follow decision making mentality that is inherent with the current Board (and a few others) over the last 40 years. Damn the torpedoes, I have three more years, so sue me and the taxpayers you poor smuck!
Now to productive input related to how the County can be “better”—in this old dog’s book. Start with a baby-step of adding two more County Commissioners who would be paid as “part-time” but of course they can work all they want—just like the three we have now. Then, revisit the Manager idea. I personally would endorse a County Manager/Administrator, but a good one will cost way more that this Board thinks. Third step (after, and if) the 5 member Commission decides to add a County Administrator position—consult with that new person whether or not certain current elected positions should be appointed or tossed into the trash heap of inefficient practice. Then, and only then—take the Initiative to replace elected officials with appointed department heads to the voters.
This is logical to me, therefore this Board won’t get it or like it because it is a long-term tact—but then Green and Tondee don’t see that far ahead, they want to work less (now), delegate to a $150K (+) a year minion (now) and retire (soon) to their Gozzer vacation homes and/or car lots on east Sprague (oops, meant Post Falls).
Back to Mary’s Question: “Do you trust the Commissioners?” Answer: Somewhat with a small grain, but I cannot trust future Commissioners to whom this proposal will ultimately affect. It now only takes two Commissioners to tango, and that dance is easily persuaded with just a handful of musical, political donors with a vested interest—Streamline for me and mine, not them or theirs.
Comment by old dog — November 2, 2012 @ 4:25 pm