I was surprised, the other day, when I asked a friend if she had voted yet.
“Oh… I just threw my ballot in the trash as soon as I got it…”
I suggested that she could get a replacement ballot at the old County Courthouse election office. She didn’t seem terribly interested in that suggestion.
It’s certainly understandable for certain people to feel like elections are annoying, unproductive, and not worth the trouble… perhaps meaningless… maybe bogus… perhaps even counterproductive. I can easily understand all of those perspectives.
Nevertheless, I dropped my ballot off in the drop box in front of the old County Courthouse downtown last week.
Because my future depends on it. And your future.
Tomorrow, Tuesday November 8, is the last day to submit your ballot.
The amount of influence we have — that you and I have — to impact how our governing boards spend our tax money, is rather limited, unless we happen to have a lot of extra money lying around, and we choose to use it to try and manipulate the folks sitting on those government boards, through ‘donations’ and other forms of generosity.
This election season, for example, a group of citizens sitting on the board of the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) — a private members-only organization that receives about 90% of its money from government — had about $16,000 sitting around in a bank account, and they agreed to fund a “Vote Yes on 1A” campaign on behalf of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners.
Actually, a rather meager investment, considering that the BOCC would collect an extra $3.25 million next year — from you and I — if 1A passes. But we can guess how the BOCC will feel about returning the favor in the future, when PSCDC comes asking for money for their own private projects. (An additional $3.25 million would accrue to the Town government, if A passes. The Town has likewise been a regular funder of PSCDC.)
Another different group of citizens privately funded a “No on 1A” campaign, to the tune of about $4,000. As far as I can tell, this particular group doesn’t expect any future donations from our local governments, for any purpose. They simply believed that the BOCC’s request for 37% increase in the amount of sales, tax paid by Pagosa Springs retirees and families and individuals, was poorly justified and possibly a sign of unwarranted government greed.
Of course, there are other issues, and candidates, on the ballot this year.
I didn’t have a strong preference for most of the statewide candidates — I honestly don’t know that much about them, in spite of the articles that we publish here in the Daily Post — and most of our local Archuleta County races had only one candidate running.
I know a bit more about the local candidates for County Commissioner and County Sheriff, because I’ve personally heard them speak in various forums, and have communicated with most of them, over coffee or via email. That’s another way a private citizen can influence government… by having conversations with government leaders.
One curious thing about local elected officials. They typically come into office, at the start of their first term, with grand ideas about how the government could be improved, but also with a willingness to learn. They then find themselves in a situation where almost everything they learn or hear comes from their staff. As a result, in many cases, they become highly dependent upon the bureaucracy for information and perspective — at least for their first four-year term in office.
If they are lucky enough to be elected to a second term, there is a chance that they can break through the bureaucratic haze and develop a personal vision that doesn’t always depend upon following the staff’s advice.
Another powerful mechanism in place, on government boards, is ‘groupthink’… a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, where the desire for harmony or conformity results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making. The desire for cohesiveness in a group can result in a tendency among its members to agree at all costs… with all the costs ultimately borne by the community, and the taxpayers.
These are, of course, merely ‘general statements’. Some elected officials do indeed arrive with strong personal visions and are readily able to resist the pull and influence of the bureaucracy, and also to resist the tendency to engage in ‘groupthink’. But we needn’t be surprised when a well-meaning person gets elected, based on certain promises and stated intentions, and then totally fails to fulfill any of them.
The issue that seemed most insidiously capable of generating ‘groupthink’ decisions, this election season, was Ballot Issue 1A. A whole slew of seemingly intelligent elected officials, and a whole slew of seemingly intelligent citizens serving on the government-supported Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation board, willingly endorsed a huge sales tax increase… the largest sales tax increase to be proposed in the 29 years I’ve lived in Pagosa Springs.
All of the sales tax increases proposed, during my living time here, were less oppressive, but failed anyway.
I voted ‘No’ on Ballot Issue 1A. Our retirees and working families and individuals are having a hard enough time, economically, without seeing their local sales tax increase by 37%.
The cost of living in Pagosa Springs has greatly increased, especially for people paying rent… which includes a lot of retirees and working folks.
But our County Commissioners have done very little, so far, to address the worsening housing crisis. Perhaps they don’t much care if our community goes the way of Aspen, Vail and Telluride? Places where only millionaires can afford a home?
How much influence do we have — you and I — to keep that from happening? Not much. But we have the power to cast our vote, each November.
One small vote for a man (or woman)… but a giant leap for mankind. Because the alternative is a society where we have absolutely no power at all.