Counting to Three
“Counting to Three” is a euphemism in county government referring to the concept that only three votes need to be bought for most major decisions made by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. If three members of the Board of Supervisors can be persuaded by whatever means necessary to go along with what a special interest group wants, then nothing else matters. The most common means of persuasion is through political action. In other words, the special interest group donates heavily to a supervisor’s election campaign and the special interest group is given the supervisor’s vote. Even those supervisors who claim to have integrity and ethics, support family values and care about their constituency get caught up in the power and riches of public life.
As county employees, taxpayers and voters, most of us are offended as we watch each of the members of the Board of Supervisors sell his or her vote to the highest bidder. We are the ones who see first-hand, up close and personal, day in and day out, the abuses our elected officials perpetrate upon the citizens they are elected to represent and protect. We know what is reported in the media is not accurate but we suffer consequences on the job if we speak up. We need to learn from the special interest groups. We, too, can “count to three.” County employees have within their power the ability to swing any local election in this county. It is time that hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens become a “special interest” group and join together to dump all incumbents and replace them with people of integrity–people like us who know what it means to work for an employer, to live within our means, to stretch a paycheck and to raise a family. We are not career politicians and we should not be represented by those who have never lived in the real world.
Three seats are up for election on the Board of Supervisors. If we work together so that we can “count to three” by electing people with ethics and integrity, we may finally have a voice in government. Three votes would rid us of Mark Uffer and end his rein of terror that has cost taxpayers untold hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, employee turnover, fraud by management, backroom deals and corruption. We could see real investigations conducted into departments that have shady managers who have no qualms about breaking the law because they know they are protected by Uffer and the Board of Supervisors. Maybe we could even see education and experience requirements reinstated for the county’s top managers instead of the nepotism that currently allows situations such as what is going on in the Assessor’s Office and the welfare department.
We will not have this chance again for at least four more years. We need to seize the opportunity and work together so that all taxpayers are represented by elected officials who share our morals and concerns. Let’s get Brad, Josie, Dennis and Mark out of county government for good.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
It is time to throw them out. Some of us have been around long enough to remember the corruption scandal. It pales in comparison to what is going on in the Taj Majal now.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
All of our officials have lost track of who they work for. It is time for a change and time for us to take our lives back from these leeches.