January 11, 2023

The State of Denial

 In her fourth State of the County address, Chair Ann Wheeler remarked on the community’s diversity and inclusivity, investments in education, economic development, collective bargaining, public safety, and transportation.

Inexplicably, she omitted the topic that has dominated the county’s business over the past year: data centers.

She touted the county’s adoption of a collective bargaining ordinance, allowing employees to negotiate collectively over terms and conditions of employment. 

However, on the same day she claimed credit for expanding advocacy for county employees, she concurrently proposed to curtail rights of self-expression for the rest of the county’s residents.  In a January 10th memo, Chair Wheeler put forward several recommendations for limiting public comment at Board of County Supervisors meetings.

It is no secret that public comment has been a source of consternation for the BOCS.  Chair Wheeler bemoans the tedium of enduring the public’s urge for self-expression, stating that public input is interrupting the county’s business. 

First, let’s remind Chair Wheeler that she is a representative serving at the pleasure of the electorate and listening to the public IS the county’s business.  Ironically, it is her contentious policies and aversion to transparency that are the impetus for the public outcry she is trying to stifle.  The public is desperately trying to tell her she’s on the wrong track through whatever means they can muster.  She’d like to reduce both the means and the messengers so BOCS meetings can more closely resemble an echo chamber that reaffirms her troubled agenda.

It might take a few months, but Chair Wheeler will get a hard lesson when the voices that might have influenced her turn into the votes that will replace her.

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