Abuse of Power

I’ve talked about abuse of power lately. All you have to do is remember Tony Masilotti, Warren Newell, Jim Exline, Ray Liberti…Mary McCarty will be sentenced to prison on June 6^{th. --} Remembering them and then relying and putting your faith in elected officials to make all the right decisions for you and for me, is nuts! But that is what some people continue to argue... "well, we voted them in and we can vote them out...this is a Republic!" Not good enough. Even the LW Herald is against public speaking. Lois Frankel, Mayor of West Palm Beach, in my opinion, is a prime example of this abuse although I will admit she raised a great son!

I don’t know how many times I have to keep saying it—I hate the Mac McKinnon philosophy. It is just so naive but mostly it is just plain arrogant but it is also the sad truth of the matter. These people get elected and then all of a sudden they have all the brains; we have none. They have all the power and we are lucky if they nod our way once we give them our vote.

Just the other day I wrote that we should be allowed to vote on anything that affects our valuable assets, the expenditure of huge amounts of money such as Frankel's City Center, etc. without a commission being the sole decider which prompted a condescending lesson in US history by a local resident and ridicule with a graphic. This does not negate the fact that our elected officials, more often than not, do not listen and do not care about their constituents or what they want. It is all about what they want. That's the bottom line.

It is the same thing as giving someone your General Power of Attorney. You trust them to do the right thing by you and then they go and steal all your money. Elected officials have all the power and we are at their mercy. Take the Iraq War as an example of our system depending upon our elected officials to make correct and just and legal decisions. We have a Congress that is the only power that can declare war. What happened in Iraq? President Bush invaded that country and overthrew a dictator there who was eventually hanged by the people. To date, we, as a nation, have spent going on $671 billion dollars of our Treasury and for what? The damage that was done is monumental. We elected a President and we were stuck with his criminal acts until we voted him out.

I keep hearing that one main argument that we can vote the bums out if we don't like the way they are leading, well yes, we can—we can also impeach, but just consider all the damage that can be done in a very short time span. After the government managed to KILL 4,300 American men, so far, since the war began on March 19, 2003, we finally got rid of George Bush nearly 6 years later. Look what happened to our entire economy? Where were the protections? When our elected rep can tell me that 6 out of 10 people do NOT want the Stimulus Bill and then votes for it anyway, what does this tell you? It tells me that I have no representation.

On a local level it is imperative that we stay on top of local officials and hold them accountable. More people should engage them by coming to commission meetings and speaking out. We need to see you at commission meetings and our elected commissioners need to hear what you think, whether they want to or not.

We have commissioners who never return phone calls and never answer e-mails. As a citizen, I don’t like being ignored. People don’t mind this type of abuse when things are going THEIR way...they don't notice it. They will be the first to scream bloody murder if things are not to their liking. I want to point out that we all need to stand up. We are all susceptible to this abuse at any given time. We are not represented when elected officials do not respond.

It was just reported in the news that the City of Lake Worth has agreed to outsource our planning and building services to Boynton Beach. Don't you think we should have at least been given the courtesy of knowing that the city was considering that action? Did the Commission even know? If they did, why didn't they tell us? Is this not important? Pretty soon we won't have a city at the rate we're going. We pay these people's paychecks, don't we?

Corruption abounds and it has and it is happening right around us. When elected officials have the power to directly influence the lives of others, then it is imperative that we keep them in check. An example of abuse is voting on a contract and having no idea what it says. An abuse is voting on an issue and not asking one question or never doing your homework on it. We have been witness to horrible decisions and our City is suffering.

If we don’t speak out, elected officials could ramrod everything of a personal nature through. We petition only as a last resort, when democracy has taken a trip south and there is no other alternative. Even with that right, it is very difficult; and as Carolyn Wright found out in West Palm Beach, it is impossible to fight a corrupt city hall. The more that we can vote on issues, and vote on things that will affect our lives, the better chance we will have to stop the egregious abuse that abounds and elected officials from doing whatever they please because they can.

To vote on our beach or our golf course should not be a problem to elected officials, unless, of course, they feel that they might lose at the polls in the direction that THEY want to take. It also should not be a problem to those few who cry, "trust your elected officials to do the right thing by the people." Thank God our Electric Utility is protected under our Charter. If they ever entertained the sale of it, it would have to go to a vote of the people. Our beach and our golf course are worth much more in dollars as is our history.

Voting is not mob rule as suggested by a possible candidate--just assurance that we won't have tyranny--and the more that we can vote on, the better off we will be.