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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.24] on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 15:06:52 :
In Reply to: Re: Yeah, it is OT posted by Brent in NV [208.66.12.145] on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 14:35:22 :
I can understand the frustration, but I know from personal experience that, as a rule, courts are very reluctant to overturn administrative decisions. A judge would say that whether or not the people wanted the ordnance is something to be decided by political lobbying and by the next council election, not by a court. It's common for the council chamber to be packed with angry citizens if there's a contentious issue at hand, even if most of the citizens (who didn't come to the meeting) are okay with what the council decided.
There's nothing in law that even requires elected representatives to represent the will of the people, so the angry guy's "felony" charges seem pointless. Barring some criminal offense like embezzlement, the citizens' only remedy is to elect a different council next time.
Time after time I've seen a group of citizens get all riled up about some particular issue, and yet when it comes time for the election, I don't hear much from them and they don't have their own slate of candidates ready to run. There's a deal like that going on in Coeur d'Alene now -- there's a group that's circulating petitions to recall the mayor because they don't like what she did, but they have nobody in mind to run against her in the event that they succeed with the recall. They're also directing most of their anger at the mayor, when the council has just as much, if not more, power.
It's easy to get people riled up about one issue. It's a lot tougher to build a political organization that can run a slate of competent reform candidates and win an election the proper way. It angers me mightily when I see city councils and county commissions blatantly thumbing their noses at the citizens, and always having unanimous votes on contentious issues, as if they already decided back at the clubhouse how they were all going to vote. Nonetheless, all our constitutions and charters provide a very clear way to solve that problem -- vote them all out of office and vote better people in -- and yet few activists want to bother with the drudgery of working within that system.
In any case, whoever posted that YouTube video needs to do a lot better job of explaining what the issue is if they want people to support them.
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