In the last few years, there has been significant progress in dismantling the arrogant and costly big-government culture in Clark County government. In the prior 20 years, Clark County government grew fat, arrogant and ideological, as liberal politicians and professional bureaucrats progressively controlled it.
The new Council Chairman Marc Boldt is attempting to immediately reverse recent progress. On December 31st Mr. Boldt directed additions to the agenda for this Tuesday’s (Jan 5th) county councilor meeting to repeal eight resolutions of the prior board that were passed in December. These resolutions formalized policy and direction in important areas of regional transportation throughput, public transportation, and reducing unnecessary government regulation and costs. These resolutions built upon the work and lessons learned from the councilor’s past three years, aligned with citizen advisory vote results, and had been openly debated before passage.
The speed and severity of this condemnation of the past council’s work is blatantly telling. Why would Boldt play it this way? He could have acted like a thoughtful statesman, but he chose the path of outright arrogance and vindictiveness. The ‘large and in charge’ school of leadership, it seems, will be his style, if left unchecked. He evidently thinks he now has the power to run roughshod over those that had the temerity to expose his deficiencies and then ran him out of county office a few years back. Further it appears Boldt does not even have the authority to conduct these actions, as his position and authority was not even effective until after the New Year.
Boldt is also attempting to pass pay increases for senior county bureaucrats. This is a brazen attempt to buy their favor when you consider how this is being attempted. A rational person would go through a very different process to study the situation, determine if there was some discrepancy in pay, establish the ability of the county to offer pay increases, and then vote on it after this work was done. This action also implies that the past board members were misers and the problem that was so bad it had to be corrected in the first few days of the new council without any background investigation. Government employees are almost always paid considerably more (pay and benefits) than their private-sector counterparts, so it is very unlikely the current status with pay is a problem. To make matters worse, it appears there may be some collusion with one or more senior bureaucrats on this matter, so www.ClarkCounty.info will investigate this further and report back to you.
Fortunately, we have four other councilors who can and should work together to stop Boldt’s aggressive actions to reassert the liberal Vancouver establishment’s power and control. Mielke and Madore will work to counter Boldt’s destruction, but they need the help of Councilors Stewart and Olson. They both have sufficient conservative credentials to do the right thing for the citizens of Clark County and legislate for the greater good. However, the deal making and infighting of the recent election leaves their perspectives uncertain. It’s up to us to contact councilors Olson and Stewart and encourage them to not further empower the self-serving ruling class. The meeting in which they will consider all of this is Tuesday (Jan. 5th) 6pm at County hearing room of the Public Service Building (6th floor) 1300 Franklin, Vancouver.
Julie Olson – County Councilor District #2 – julie.olson2@clark.wa.gov
Jeanne Stewart – County Councilor District #1. – Jeanne.Stewart@clark.wa.gov
Details at: https://www.clark.wa.gov/the-grid