Monday, March 26, 2012

Take our poll: What quality do you look for in a candidate?

Take our poll: What quality do you look for in a candidate? | MLive.com
Muskegon Chronicle asks the question!

My response:
"The one major (certainly not the only) quality needed at the county level is courage to say, out loud, the truth.
Our county has grown a $100 million debt in the last 10 years, given new iPads to each commissioner(with free internet connection), crammed through a $2.35 million "loan" to Brookhaven with no public notice and made promises to employees that can NOT be fulfilled without tax increases to the taxpaying public and businesses.
Yet, when citizens and the only brave commissioner, Alan Jager, ask for time to understand big spending bills before the votes, he is outvoted by EVERYONE.
The citizens are simple dismissed with silence.
It is the spending and the lack of transparency that is sinking our county.
And few have the courage to tell the people.
We need a few brave men and women!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frankly I don't think the iPads are the greatest issue facing the county, especially since they are projected to pay for themselves in postage and printing savings.

People fixating on that issue are missing for forest for the trees IMHO.

Jim Riley said...

No one is suggesting the free iPads are a "greatest" issue facing the county. But it is indicitive of the "I want it, you pay for it" attitude of our county commissioners. They are well compensated for their 5-6 meeting/mo positions with free lifetime health, dental and vision care, pension, expense account and cash pay of about $16-18,000/yr. All adding to a total cost to the county of $40,000/yr per commissioner.
And the "pay for themselves" lie is easy to prove as the fabrication it is. The cost of postage could have easily been eliminated sinec the commissioners visit the county building often and I'm told that most of the printing was tossed by commissioners without even being read. The $30/mo per commissioner free internet also blows that lie out of the stadium.
Thanks for your input.
Jim