Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Infrastructure lasts forever, right???

Sometimes I hate being right...

Almost 10 months ago, I wrote a post about an acronym on some campaign signs that I didn't know the meaning of, "CAWCD."

[Note: While this weekend's FISA vote has generated more comments as a topic, the comments are spread out over 4 posts; to date, at 10 comments, the CAWCD post remains my single most-commented post.]

As I learned at the time, it's the acronym for the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, the group that serves at the board of directors for the Central Arizona Project (CAP). CAP is the canal that brings water from the Colorado River to central and southern Arizona.

The post went over the list of candidates for the boards, gave brief evaluations, and eventually made some recommendations.

A couple of those recommendations included recommendations against certain candidates, using phrases like -
Janie Thom was noted for bringing partisanship to a non-partisan body when she was a member of the Mesa City Council. There's no reason to think that she would be any different here, and that's not was the CAWCD or the state needs.

and
However, the CAWCD deals with our *water*. That's a serious subject that affects all of us, and it requires serious people to address it.

Well, earlier this evening I was researching the text of an anonymous comment that was left on another post, a comment that really read like a Republican Party press release.

I didn't find the source of the text in the comment, but I did find something on the website of the Maricopa County Republican Party that makes that CAWCD post look prescient.

From the "Things to think about" page of the MCRP website, posted by Lyle Tuttle, Chair -

CAP Tax Reduction!!

Monday, July 02 2007 @ 08:13 AM MST
Contributed by: lyle
Views: 5

It is working! See what happens when you vote for less spending?

The following from Jean McGrath:--------------------------------------------------

I forgot to mention that the tax rate reduction from 8 cents per $100 to 6 cents just barely squeaked by at the CAP Board meeting on June 21st.

All the votes Maricopa Republicans got for me, Gayle Burns, Pam Pickard and Janie Thom paid off.

Lisa Atkins voted against the tax rate reduction.

The final talley [sic] was just a few percentage points (we have weighted voting) in the win column.

Thank all Republicans for their support.

Promises made, promises kept.

Jean McGrath


Yup, the candidates that I suggested avoiding are now board members who are doing what I suggested avoiding - turning our water supply into a playpen for a partisan experiment in irresponsible ungoverning.

And they're proud of that.

Last week, Desert Beacon in Nevada wrote a great piece on the perils of defunding long-term infrastructure maintenance in the name of short-term tax cuts.

The tax cuts are 'short-term' because eventually, the price has to be paid, whether for maintaining or for not maintaining the roads, bridges, dams, and other components of our infrastructure.

And, as the victims of last week's bridge collapse in Minneapolis found out, that payment is sometimes exacted in twisted steel, shattered concrete, and crushed bodies.

It's time to start expecting that our elected officials, and candidates for elective office, are people who are forward-thinking and take seriously the responsibilities of governing. Note that I didn't mention political parties in that statement.

Certain issues that are fundamental to governance, such as dealing with corruption, providing basic services, and creating and maintaing the infrastructure for our society, really *must* be addressed in a nonpartisan way.

'Nuff said...

BTW - the 'Lisa Atkins' mentioned/criticized in the MCRP quote is one of the candidates that I recommended voting for, not least because of her professionalism.

Just tootin' my own horn... :))

3 comments:

katie said...

This is a great post! I was amazed by the outcome of this election, where only one incumbent was returned to the board. It's interesting that all women were elected. For something this important, why is it an elected office at all?

Craig said...

What I heard, and I don't have a source for this, is that since there were 5 seats up for election, and all 5 women on the ballot were hardcore Republicans, Republican activists were told to just 'vote for the women.'

Easy to remember, that.

I'm not sure why this is an elected office; of course, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the concept of an elected "State Mine Inspector."

:)

Desert Beacon said...

You've nailed a really important point here: Local Elections are Crucial. Local elections have never been all that "sexy" and in an age of media consolidation it becomes all the more difficult to get folks to focus on how important school board, water board, and other infrastructure administration elections truly are, and harder to get good local news on the candidates. Thanks for covering this subject!
And..thanks for the link, much appreciated.