So what do you do if the candidates you back aren’t winning enough of the time lately in Grand County’s nonpartisan elections? And if your attempts to end our county’s governance have been repeatedly beaten back by the very voters you claim to represent? Well, if you’re the bullies of the Republican Party, you reach into your dirty tricks bags to mix HB 224, the bill nobody knew, with local party cooperation and the silent complicity of your inside man on the county council to conjure up a fix mandating the council’s end, hijacking the process to change it, and virtually rigging the end result. What a callous way to place party scheming above respect for the will of the voters!
Not surprisingly, Manny Torres and Jerry McNeely, two of the Republicans pulling the strings on this coup, were caught up in the cronyism and lack of accountability problems of the early 1990s which galvanized the popular revolt reforming our government to its present form.
Don’t forget that whatever partisan county government we end up with, it’s because of this sneak attack on local democracy by the Republican Party, showing utter contempt for the choices we as voters have made. Even better, you can express your own disdain for this legislative coup by registering to vote and then actually doing so. If you don’t express your disapproval by how you vote, you’re simply justifying the Republican Party’s belief that elections are inconveniences to be blocked and beaten back.
Someday, we’ll learn the fix was in, as with the downsizing of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase- Escalante national monuments. Meanwhile, raise your voices as citizens and voters to oppose this latest attack by the Republican Party on our county’s reformed governance, If it succeeds in turning the clock back to a smaller, more partisan, less accountable county commission, let’s make sure it pays a price at the polls.
