Area resident Rob Anderson expresses his displeasure for the Clark County Council’s decision to create a new Jail Services Department

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

“We’re not going to rush this.” “This is just the beginning.” “This will increase transparency.” “Having Jail Services will increase accountability.” Now that the other shoe has dropped just six days later with the full appointment of the Jail Services staff, we know that all these statements to the public were false and misleading.

Last week, with minimal notice, no timeline, budget, and details of plans in the works, or without a completed staff report, the Clark County Council stripped away the Jail Services from an elected official to an unelected bureaucrat. This move was a massive shift of power from the people to the bureaucracy,

How do they do it? How do the Democrat bureaucrats mostly control “Republican” elected officials into foolishly doing their bidding as seen this week with the Jail Services takeover?

It’s easy when they control the advice and guidance councilors get behind closed doors in executive sessions. By law, the prosecuting attorney (PA) provides all legal support to the county councilors and all departments and elected officials.

We’ve seen this time and time again here in Clark County. When councilors were ready to take action on a vaccination clinic at Ridgefield High School that was vaccinating children without parental consent (under the abuse of Mature Minor Doctrine) and improperly using the Associated Student Body (ASB) and teachers to pressure children to get vaccinated, the attorney literally stepped in by interrupting the discussions and shut down the councilors’ efforts by erroneously telling them they don’t have the legal authority to make supervisory decisions even though the RCW’s are crystal clear. The Board of Health, everyone who sits on the Clark County Council, is to supervise the Health Officer (RCW 70.05.060 and RCW 70.05.070). Again, when councilors wanted to act to stop Dr. Melnick from singling out wrestlers by shutting down their sport during winter break, they suddenly went into an executive session and came out not willing to act on behalf of the people. But the granddaddy of examples is what happened to the mini-initiative. The PA’s office practically wrote the script for Temple Lentz with a privileged one-sided OPINION against the people’s petition, which didn’t even address the possibility of discriminating outcomes. The only reason the curtain was pulled back so we could see how they work is because of the voluminous public pressure that caused the councilors to make the “opinion” public. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the attorneys do their bidding in secret and lead the councilors by the nose, giving them the feeling that “they know better” than the public. They lead them to believe that they must follow their advice without question because they have all the information while the rest of us watch from afar.

Now, going back to last week’s decision, I have no doubt that these same tactics were implemented to sway the councilors to do the Democrats’ bidding, through the hospice of the county manager. Even though she has practically ignored the jail situation and only toured it for the first time a few weeks ago, she met the council, most likely with the county attorney in hand, and told a sad teary-eyed story of looming lawsuits because of disgruntled employees, an outdated jail facility, inmates who are willing and ready to sue the county. After that meeting, each councilor felt that they needed to act to ”save” the county from lawsuits and doom and gloom. Just like that, we now have a new bureaucracy coming online, totally under the control of unelected bureaucrats that will no doubt help reshape correctional officers’ culture and eventually influence the entire Sheriff’s Department to follow their lead rather than an elected official which We The People can influence. Yes, We The People will have less access and transparency thanks to the Home Rule Charter, which prohibits county councilors from supervising the newly formed department. Heck, the councilors don’t even have the legal authority to supervise the county manager let alone any other department in the county. All they can do is hire and fire the county manager, which is not equivalent to supervisor authority. The whole argument that the Jail Services Department will have more accountability to elected officials is an absolute farce. It’s not like government officials would ever mislead the public or anything. 

See how this works? Apparently, none of the current councilors understands or are willing to do anything about it out of fear of reprisals and smear hit-jobs from Democrat-supported media, would rather continue to hand over power to the bureaucratic state in Clark County, and keep the people in the dark or at arms’ distance.

We need to elect councilors who are wise to these games and won’t keep conceding valuable territory to entrenched bureaucrats, and eventually set our sights on electing a prosecuting attorney who will look out for the People’s rights more than just the bureaucrat’s empire as is being done currently.

We also need major reforms of the Home Rule Charter that bring back power to the people. The current resolutions that you’ll see on the ballot will only continue the bureaucratic takeover and strip more away from citizens. We must elect councilors who see through the corruption, are willing to act to restore We The People’s rights and access to supervise our county government agencies (Vote for Don Benton & Michelle Belkot for County Council), reject all six upcoming Home Rule Charter amendment resolutions (www.RejectAllSix.com for more info), and support changes to the Home Rule Charter that actually protect citizens rights ,and reverses the bureaucratic takeover of our county.

Join our efforts and stay informed, engaged and vigilant by signing up for email updates at www.reformclarkcounty.com.

For a more detailed rebuttal check out this video

Rob Anderson
Vancouver

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