"BACK IN THE SCHOOLYARD"

Or, Juvenile Local Politics

I used to think most of the community governments around here, particularly the city councils, acted like they were still in Junior High School complete with the usual little exclusionary cliques, petty personality cults, domination games and vengeance seeking for perceived insults. Observing the County Commissioners over the last few years however has convinced me the perceived age level of what passes for local “politicians” must be set even lower. Those currently in power seem to act like they are on a Grade School playground dominated by bullying, sulking and name calling taunts.

Replace them ALL, every last one, and do so at the earliest opportunity.

In fact, maybe there should be a Charter change to select Commissioners by lot, perhaps out of jury pools. It would be an interesting experiment. For the most part, the typical juror has proven to be much more thoughtful, attentive, and determined to do the right thing than the typical politician acting as if he or she had a “mandate” or entitlement to do whatever they wanted.

If we can’t seem to find genuine adults volunteering to run for office, then maybe we should “draft” some. Frankly, it is hard to imagine that even selecting officeholders at random, like some of the early Greek democracies once did by the way, could be much worse for our County than limiting the choices to just those who have been arrogantly self selecting themselves for the positions. Call me a cynic, but at least with a lottery system, we might finally have a statistical chance to occasionally find some who would act responsibly, selflessly, ethically, and concerned about the future beyond merely the next election cycle.