Elected officials (politicians) in this country, at all levels of government – federal, state, county, and city – seem to be intentionally trying to do the worst job of governing that they can imagine. They must hire consultants to advise them on how and what to screw up next. I am not optimistic. The political class and their masters, the business class, had better start doing a better job of governing or people who have to work for a living will take over, and start running this country for OUR benefit, not theirs.

Perhaps Mr. Ames has something there. Elect, say, seven people from among the masses to serve as part-time coordinators of the operation of the County with a full-time person overseeing the day to day operations. Oh wait, that’s already how the City of Boise functions — but the full-time overseer in called Mayor and is elected by city residents instead of appointed by a small group of people. How is that working, by the way? In my opinion the answer is in the quality of the people elected — be it three, five, seven or whatever — not in what figure represents the right numbers or whether they’re full or part time.

Sounds like our commishes are having the last ” horse-laugh” on the people at the Peoples expense.

They are not only telling the taxpayers that ” We are above the Law” but if you are stupid enough to try to make us obey the law” we’ll spend your money getting ourselves off the hook.

Local govt. is corrupt but this is the best example of the flagrant disregard of the law and of the welfare of the people of Ada County that Our County commissioner’s have shown during most of their terms in office.

Osprey, unfortunately the Statesman folks were not talking about the Attorney General’s office billing the three commissioners as private individuals for the State’s legal fees. They were talking about the AG’s office billing Ada County, the entity, so property taxpayers could end up paying this bill IN ADDITION to the $18,000 already spent. From Brad Hem’s March 25 front-page headline story, “Deputy Attorney General Bill Von Tagen said he might also consider asking Woodland to charge the county for the state’s legal fees, but he has not calculated what the amount would be.”

Max said, “Someone needs to file a lawsuit to force them to personally pay the money back!!” Actually, several of us have thought of that before. The commissioners should be paying for this legal exercise out of their own pockets rather than out of ours. They are not doing this on our behalf, but on their own.

At the commissioners’ March 24 news conference, Fred Tilman explained that the commissioners are entitled to a taxpayer-paid legal defense for all of the many decisions they make on a regular basis. I disagree. The Commission, or rather the entity of Ada County which the Commission represents, IS entitled to a legal defense at the expense of the taxpayers for all acts legally committed by the commissioners, such as making a decision about a subdivision. Nevertheless, that fact does not mean that the commissioners, as individuals, are entitled to a taxpayer-paid legal defense for illegal acts they have committed while doing their jobs.

For example, if a commissioner were accused of stealing the County’s stash of petty cash, s/he would obviously be expected to pay for his/her own attorney and legal defense. The Open Meeting Law violation is exactly the same, but in this case, all three commissioners were caught committing the civil violation. Therefore, all three commissioners should be required to pay all of the legal fees, including those of the AG’s office, out of the $85,000 + annual salaries they have set for themselves.

ED NOTE–Sharon Ullman is a candidate for Ada County Commission.

Sharon has my vote!

ED NOTE–We will interpret that as a vote for the idea. We really don’t want to get into a candidate for and against or letter writing campaigns etc. Glad to discuss views, but the GUARDIAN really needs to refrain from taking positions on candidates.