nor were they particularly virtuous
but their incompetence, deceit, snake oil, and intimidation
made them the "Villages of the Darned
8. May 2008: The Second Anniversary of the Formation of the
Villages of the Darned
Rigging the Election to Keep the Cronies on the Board
8.1 Rigging the Application Process to Keep People From Being Candidates
The easiest way to make sure your appointed, crony friends are "re-elected"
to help you boss the Community is to make sure no one else runs!
=>
If there
are 4 positions and only your 4 friends run, why then it would be very hard to
lose.
In this commentary, we will look at how the incumbents, with the assistance of the County Bureaucrat, withheld information from the Community.
=> with the effect of keeping the open positions and deadlines a secret.
8.1.1 What Should Have Been Done
In the May 2006, May 2007, and September 2008 Villages
elections, the mantra was
"get the Community involved, keep the Community
informed".
This included:
- Advertising the Board openings in the Mountain Times and Sandy Post, about 6 weeks before the Town Hall election with a will established due date.
- Having the "official web site" kept up to date with the information.
- Posting at the usual locations around the community.
- Having other web sites, publications, newsletters, etc give notice.
- For the First Town Hall, there was even a Community Wide Mailing.
8.1.2 Did They Know What and How to Publicize the Openings? Yes
The current incumbent officers/leaders, Chair DSM, Vice Chair BOG, former Chair SOS, and County Bureaucrat VJG, had active roles in past elections. (please note that code names are used to protect the innocent). The entire leadership has been on the Board since the first election, there can be no valid argue that they "didn't know".
The leadership also knows very well that they have a duty to the community to make this election open, communicated, and fair. If you attend any of their meetings, they pontificate at length about keeping the community trust and how they are required to do it.
Anything besides open, honest communication is not only a violation the Community Trust...
but also their personal "word" and trust, that they have repeatedly give to the Community.
8.1.3 What The incumbents/Bureaucrat did for the May 2007 Board
elections:
NOTHING
Actually, the 4 incumbent cronies somehow knew and managed to file to retain their positions.
=> Side Note: well, maybe. Since 2 out of the 3 statements from the newbie incumbents were identically the same as what they give to the County Bureaucrat in September 2007, it is not clear that they actually filed for their positions or that the County Bureaucrat VJG just filed for them... after the deadline?
8.1.4 Opportunities That Were Specifically Avoided
What the incumbent cronies and board leadership didn't do is clearly a much longer list than what they did.
- the "Official Web Site", managed by the
County Bureaucrat VJG, was allowed to stagnate at what it said in
early March. From about March until early May, it looked like this on
March 28, 2008 (click the image for a more complete version):
Even as late as May 23, the Town Hall notice was exactly as shown and no agenda was ever posted. - No notices were published in either the Mountain Times nor the Sandy Post
- No notices were placed in the post offices nor the library
- Board incumbents attending community meetings did
not inform the community,
=> not even when specifically asked if there was something to report from the Villages - No notification was given to the CPO's
- No notification was given at the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
- Nothing was sent to the Chamber email list
- No mailings to the Community were made
- Nothing put on the Fire Station reader board
- No Notification to people who are "parties of interest"
- No Notification to reporters or newspapers
In other words, they seemed to sit back, stay quiet, and hope no one noticed. One Community Member did happen to find out a couple days before and file, but, as we shall see, they had "ways of dealing with them".
8.1.5 Bottom Line: Keep Others From Filing For Your Cronies' Positions
So, the simplest way to "stay in power" is to simple make sure no one else is even a candidate. Keeping the Community in the dark, while it may violate your flowery words, is very effective, and, after the election, who can do anything (just look at Zimbabwe).
It is especially effect if you can get the County Bureaucrat to help, the County Commissioners don't seem to care about it
