Amboy resident Thomas Schenk expresses the importance of the vote for Charter Review Commission candidates
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com
Your upcoming vote is critical in electing Commissioners to the Charter Review Commission in the November, 2025 election.
Why is this so important?
Citizens are elected to the Charter Review Commission, three commissioners from each of the five County Council Districts for a total of fifteen Commissioners.
The Commissioners review operations of the County Government and propose changes to the Charter. These Charter amendments are then voted on by you, the Clark County voter.
Though the Commissioner position is labeled “non-partisan”, even The Columbian, on Nov. 11, 2020 acknowledged the fifteen Commission members elected then were mostly Democrats or liberal leaning partisans … fourteen Democrats and one Republican.
That Commission proposed six Charter amendments in 2022, three of which failed…Ranked Choice Voting; a County DEI office; and a proposed change to the number of signatures required for a County Initiative process … three others passed. Unfortunately, the one-sided composition of the Commission produced amendments stemming from unabashedly liberal Democrat policies.
The Clark County Republican Party (CCRP) is endorsing eleven candidates for the Commission and Republican voters, along with common sense Democrat and Independent voters must elect at least an eight person Republican majority on the commission to avoid the radical leftist agenda infecting much of our politics today.
It is likely voters will see two of the three failed Charter amendments, noted previously, back on a future ballot with additional items from the radical progressive wish list if the Democrats control the Commission as they did in 2020/2022.
“Non-partisan” is a label Democrats succeeded in using to camouflage their progressive election politics. I challenge anyone to find a “non-partisan”, in this day and age of tense politics. “Non-partisan” was sold to voters claiming it would end the political squabbling in County government.
Democrats or leftist Councilors are now entrenched in an alleged “non-partisan” County government, with Sue Marshall, Wil Fuentes, Glen Yung and Matt Little all left-leaning, or out-and-out Democrats with Michelle Belkot the only conservative voice on the County Council Board.
Currently Clark County is a microcosm of the Federal government, a behemoth whose budget continues to outpace its receipts, just as Clark County’s budget continues to grow and Councilors search for additional revenue to satisfy the gap.
I wonder why governmental budgets can’t do what most families have to do when “receipts” don’t cover their expenses … like cutting back until “receipts” have returned to normal…I guess that’s too much to ask!
Thomas Schenk
Yacolt
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