Villages of the Darned

Introduction: A Good Idea Corrupted

It is always sad when unbounded enthusiasm of volunteers of a volunteer organization gets ground into withdrawal and resentment by pompous, self anointed "leaders". Leaders who are:

mostly kindly described as incompetent and clueless
some older ones may seem to "be losing it,
gain their position through wily, slick, less than honest talk and positioning
if deceit doesn't work, then resorting to simple bullying and intimidation works wonders in eliminating volunteer contributions, and
have a small number of close sycophant and parasites to do the dirty work

While we see these behaviors everyday in "politics", it is most disappointing when it occurs in volunteer organizations that are attempting to do projects for their community.

This series of commentaries explore the learnings and insights we can gain from the situation that is happening in the meltdown and failure of the

Villages at Mt. Hood.

a Clackamas County Complete Communities which was intended to allow the County Commissions to have a way to gain more reliable input from a remote community.

A concept that was intended to build community volunteerism by pulling together the community on projects that could benefit from support by the County, got hijacked by deceit, bullying, snake oil, and self serving egotism of self-anointed "leaders". "Leaders" who where aided and abetted by a bureaucratic, junior, relatively inexperienced County employee assigned to be the liaison.

What motivates those people to ruin their reputations like this?
How can the County Liaison believe she is doing a "good job" as the project wallows in the mud due, in part, to her actions?
Why don't the Commissioners take action as their great concept slides towards its "train wreck" and the potential for the electorate to wreak revenge?

The particulars are very illuminating.

Of course, all names have been changed to protect the innocent and, to emphasize issues, many of the details have been rudely highlighted.

They weren't totally evil,
nor were they particularly virtuous,
but their incompetence, deceit, snake oil, and intimidation
made them the Villages of the Darned

Villages of the Darned