ACHTUNG: The following is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
Two very interesting local stories surfaced in the past week, both suggesting too many average working stiffs don’t really understand the difference between a democracy (or a republic, if you prefer) and plutocracy (or oligarchy, if you prefer).
I’m writing about the parking lot controversy next to Arny Rodriguez’s wine and cheese shop and about the Allegan County Clerk’s office’s refusal to work with all township and city clerks to handle costs and duties cooperatively in the nine-day early voting period in 2024.
The parking issue is troubling because it includes an effort once again to paint a negative picture of government. This kind of gamesmanship has been used with great success ever since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
It was Reagan, after all, who campaigned with the statement that “government IS the problem.”
Use of public taxpayer funds for a long time has supposed to have been limited to public entities, such as schools, police, fire, roads and non-profit enterprises.
The long-held notion has been that each of us as individuals cannot afford a firefighter or police officer, so we all chip in to the public kitty to pay for those services. Much-hated but necessary taxes are used to fund these services besides schools, roads water sewer and ambulance.
The City of Wayland apparently for a long time had provided snow plowing at parking lots for private businesses and sidewalks for private residences. Now the city is pulling back because public funds are not supposed to be used to benefit private entities. Many believe we already pay more than enough for city taxes.
The reaction from some readers has been swift and critical, prompting some public officials to respond, “If you want these services you have to pay for them.”
City officials also insist that the downtown business district includes more than adequate public parking.
Meanwhile, local township and city clerks are crying foul over Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski’s decision not to work together with local clerks in efforts to share duties and costs in handling mandates from state-wide voters last November to provide nine days of early voting at their facilities. More than 60 percent voted for this imposition.
Genetski has made it clear to everybody be opposes this Proposal 2 from 2022. I agree with him and other clerks that the new law is cumbersome and probably not needed since mail-in voting and ballot drop sites have been approved.
But Genetski and his colleagues cannot suddenly pick and choose which laws they will follow and implement and which ones they will not. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. We collectively seem to be losing our grip in understanding that premise.
The point here is that actually over the 247 years since the U.S. Constitution was adopted, we have added a murky cloud over things businesses and the private sector should pay for vs. using public tax dollars. We no long insist that private religious schools not receive public funds or services.
We no longer insist that taxes not be used to help pay for privately owned sports complexes and for the roads and other infrastructure they need.
The financial line between public and private has become exceedingly blurred, especially in the last 40 years.
The public be public, the private be private, and never the twain should meet.
Great job Dave you nailed it!
Unfortunately this missive did not actually nail it. The Reagan attribution is correct, except his reference was to government at the national level. As Reagan’s counterparty Tip O’Neill famously stated, all government is local. deTocqueville cited that as the strength of our system in its very early days. And here local government made its choice. Secondly, Genetski did not ignore the law. His message followed the language of the statute exactly. It allows each county a local choice in implementation. That choice was made and communicated. Local clerks have the right to be unhappy but there are alternatives. You may disagree but don’t misstate the facts.
I went uptown today to see a completely empty parking lot. Nobody is going to pay $2.50 an hour to park in Wayland. There is nothing up there. The city of Wayland has gone backwards since City Manager Barb Van Duren left. Since then, the council has hired city managers looking for a paycheck. No ties to Wayland and they do not care, How many has there been since Barb?