Here it is, from where it began, to the ballot on November 6th: how ballot initiative 37 came to be.

Fall, 2017    Mayor Kim Maggard uses the gravitas and power of her office to, essentially, manipulate voters through ‘literature’ and appearances at the polls to vote for those pro-Maggard candidates she wants in and to defeat those who don’t genuflect in her presence, or are critical of her policies and actions (In a small town like ours it disrespects small political efforts and wrongly imposes her power and will on small campaigns that have a right to fight each other until the ‘best man wins’. Its like two candidates fighting fairly with swords and she shows up for one of them with a nuclear bomb). Her efforts succeed and the legislative branch now teems with pro-Maggard supporters. I believe she did this for a couple reasons:

#1) She now has maximum power at her knee to assure her absolute power at the helm and that everything she does (for good or ill) will be rubber-stamped through.

#2) With council making picks for the Charter Review Commission coming up in 2018, it would certainly be advantageous for her that a majority on council were ‘friends of the Mayor’ when recommendations were made for citizens to the Charter Review Commission.

Winter, 2018   The 2018 Charter Review process chooses its 5 members. Among them is 2017 Ward 3 Council candidate Paul Werther, who’d received a campaign donation from Council President Jim Graham, a clear conflict of interest Jim Graham should have heeded. There were also conflicts of interest with others Mr. Graham should have heeded but didn’t. It was his obligation to the public trust in his capacity as Council President to do so but, through manipulation (damning) or carelessness (stupidity), he didn’t. It is squarely in his lap that this wrong was done.

Here he is yelling at me for calling him, an elected official, out over this breach of trust in this conflict.

The question becomes then: will those with conflicts be able to put aside any biases in their decisions for recommendations to people they share biases with, or, will they work for things which will/could benefit those they have relations with at City Hall? Because Council President Graham didn’t honor the public trust and didn’t vet them (or, cared to…) we cannot know. *

March, 2018   Two Charter Review members bring up the term limits question. Paul Werther is the one who suggests that instead of terms being ended altogether, as has been tried twice (unsuccessfully), that they should be extended to three? They even add how, because things are looking good in Whitehall recently, that this seems like a good idea. (Term limits as reward)
So then, here’s where we are so far…

• (A) Mayor succeeds in loading council with Maggard-friendly people.
• B) Maggard-friendly people choose Charter Review members with City Hall-related conflicts.
• C) Charter Review members make Official-friendly recommendation to Maggard-friendly council, that which could not only benefit the conflict-related officials but Mayor Maggard too.

Take note (read carefully): As I have stated before, while I would never believe these Charter Review people would do, or be capable of such a thing, because of conflicts of interest present, it throws a shadow of doubt, a natural suspicion, upon their actions and so, given also the past untrustworthy behavior of officials such as Council President Graham and Mayor Maggard, sense and reason lead us to this logical result: how then could it not look as it does? How?! How else are we to see this?!                                                                                                  

This is precisely why you avoid conflicts of interest in the first place. Its called the public trust, that which various officials at City Hall have repeatedly ignored (as if they mean to, and in the doing, shape results for their own benefit) and as such, cast doubt onto their own characters. That which is judged when they hand-pick candidates (some with conflicts of interest) to serve on a commission which has the power to create recommendations which could, with their hand, benefit them, that process which they could never do themselves without great political fallout. Manipulating the citizens system to benefit themselves. Acting then as a backdoor means to get what they want. And, if no one is paying attention, there’s nothing really too obvious for citizens to get worked up about, and certainly not so much to cause any kibosh upon that self-serving means to an end. See?

As well, if myself and Leslie LaCorte and Lee Stahley, who’d all just ran campaigns, (two of whom had been on Council), were ripe for consideration of the Charter Review, why on earth weren’t any of us picked? Its really an excellent and telling question. Why were others chosen but not one of us? We who were certainly capable and showed allegiance and firm dedication to Whitehall in campaigning for office? Seems strange, right? Biased perhaps. Like, why wouldn’t they choose any of us but choose others instead? Did it have anything to do with malleability and being ‘Maggard-friendly’? Being that we clearly weren’t on ‘Team Maggard’ (although we definitely were on ‘Team Whitehall’ and ‘Team Scruples’) do you think there’s any weight to the idea that their not picking us was because we might not be open to recommendations that would benefit them, were they brought up? Or, alternately, that maybe those they did pick might be more open? Given past examples of official’s questionable character, its plausibility certainly rings true.

May, 2018     The Charter Review recommendations** are given to the Maggard-friendly city council. The ones regarding term limits were; either a) extending them to 3 terms b) ending them completely or c) leaving them alone. Guess which one was chosen by them to go to the ballot? You guessed it: the one that would most likely pass at the ballot, directly benefitting their ‘Team Leader’, Mayor Maggard, as well as the conflict-of-interest-blind/public-trust-be-damned Council-President Jim Graham. As well, it would directly benefit the other ‘Maggard-friendly’ people on council too: at-Large Councilpersons Bob Bailey and Karen Conison and Ward Councilmen Larry Morrison and Chris Rodriguez. **sigh**  (Of course nobody on the Charter Review came up with a recommendation to close the loophole which allows councilpersons to jump from at-large to Ward and vice-versa and back again, despite my mentioning it to them during their process! (Mmm-hmmm.)

Fall, 2018     With the effort to extend term limits from two to three now headed to the ballot, Mayor Maggard’s efforts to impress the community ramp up using a flurry of events and items to impress you (Look how much she’s doing! ), no doubt to energize you to vote for 3 terms. With this understanding, the City of Whitehall Facebook page starts looking less informational and more like an ersatz political cheerleading arm of the Maggard administration, aka propaganda. (see examples below)

A political committee is formed called ‘Committee to Extend Progress’ with….wait for it……………City Treasurer and ‘Team Maggard’ team player Steve Quincel acting as their treasurer too!! Full circle. Manipulating processes to benefit themselves. It’s called vested interests people***.  And people question why term limits exist?!

*Public office is a public trust. Colleen Lewis says it well in an article she wrote for the website, ‘The Conversation’. She wrote, “When we entrust people with power over our lives, that power should be exercised in our interests; that obligation must always prevail over the interests of the people given the power… It follows that when (an elected official) is making a decision and the common good of the people requires one decision, but his or her personal or political loyalties and future require a different decision, he or she must always give priority to the common good.” In other words, ones own loyalties and gain must take a backseat to that of the public’s interests and gains.

Merriam-Webster defines conflict of interest as; a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust. (See: public office as a public trust) “In the area of open and accountable government our public trustees – both elected and appointed public servants– inevitably have to deal with a conflict of interest arising from their obligation to give priority to the public interest over their personal and political interests”. The Ethics Resource Center in Virginia clarifies why this is vital to our system. It says; “Democracies and free markets absolutely rely on the integrity of their systems for the free flow of information and objective decision-making. Conflicts of interest act as a cancer that eats away at those institutions. Any society that cannot effectively address or prevent conflicts of interest will soon find its democracy and its free markets in states of collapse…it is also true that public servants, especially in democracies, are generally held to higher standards than private sector counterparts. Elected and appointed government officials are expected to serve the people, not only their supervisor or agency. …values that are at the foundation of what we think is wrong with conflicts of interest. The three fundamental values in play are trust, integrity and fairness…they are at the base the fundamental concepts that inform the instrumental value-e.g. avoiding conflicts of interest”.

**https://whitehallwatchblog.com/2018/04/24/whitehall-charter-review-meeting-april-23rd-discussion-time/
My favorite quote from this post is this, “(most felt the language on the ballot might be to blame for the last time it failed at the polls in 2013. Did anyone consider the notion that it failed because people want them kept in place? Why must it’s loss be attributed to anything else?)”

Why indeed.

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