The latest (Dec 17-31 issue) B. S. editorial has got to be his lamest ever. Click and follow the link to complete editorial;
When it comes to hitting below the belt and taking cheap shots Bruce Smith has no equal. He has one sentence in his article that he himself should adhere to. He states: “They need to have the intellectual honesty to discuss the idea of district-only elections on its merits, without the name calling”
Okay Brucie boy, lets do that, let’s look at the merits. Except that I still will consider you a cheap shot distortionist!
Yakima’s current hybrid system of 4 districts and 3 at large and all seven elected at large has been operating since 1977. I’m not sure what the city boundaries and population was back then but when I moved here in 1982 it was a much smaller city with about 45,000 people. The city has expanded considerably through annexations and population has grown to 85,000.
The 4 Districts have grown significantly and the makeup of the population has changed dramatically. The best way to keep pace with growth of the city is to have representative government. What could possibly be more representative than dividing the city into 7 districts equal in population and then having those districts determine their council member?
Currently a typical city council election can easily run from $10,000 to $30,000. Special interest money flourishes in this system, as there are no limits to how much they can kick in. This is an intimidating factor that keeps a lot of qualified people (both Anglo and Hispanic) from seeking public office. With the smaller districts, and with candidates being elected only by their district, the cost of running for office would be greatly reduced. Special interest money would diminish and so would their influence. There would likely be a greater number of candidate choices for the voters to consider. We would have 7 people elected from their neighborhoods to come together with a broader variety of ideas to make decisions that affect the whole city.
Our country actually has a system like this. It’s called the House of Representatives. Many cities have a district only system and so do many counties. The time has come to make some real changes to Yakima!
Awright! Open warfare. Let’s get it on. A little blood in the trenches is good for the nutritive quality of the soil. And, besides, this little joust will keep the citizen’s attention so they won’t notice the bad guys sneaking up from behind to do the real damage. Choose your weapons, and let’s see some real banging and clanging.
Having three at-large positions on the council means that a majority of the council can reside in a single district. A system that allows that degree of concentration of power tends toward concentration. A good representative system would require some dispersion of power.
The charter seems a little vague on the definition of residence. Tell me, someone, is it required that an elected official’s primary residence to be within the district?
Bruce used two major assumptions as if they were truth and expects all to swallow them to agree with him.
Does racisim exist in the US today? Of course it does but that did not stop Obama from elected President! Bruce assums that racisim is ok that minority politicians just have to work harder at it to be elected but that they can be elected so there is nothing wrong (enough) with the system to justify correction!
He goes on to say that Bauchamp was elected under the current system as added evidence that a minority can be elected. This assums that Bauchamp was the answer to all of the needs of the minorities living is Yakima. I found Bauchamp a very smart politician, he used his position as a black, to get elected but did not stand up to the establishment to work for minority issues, instead he was used to quell and quiet the masses. Why is the east side of Yakima looking like an indian reservation when it is part of the city of yakima and why did Bauchamp never raise this as an issue when the majority of the blacks live on the east side?
The fact remains that this has been a proven method to correct issues of representation and no yelling and screaming on Bruce’s part will slow down this effort for better representation.
Hector….how about you making a New Year’s resolution to PAY YOUR DEBTS??