FLIP FLOPPING AREN'T WE THERE LANCE?

 

The C4CLC political action committee brought up a good point on their web site, I would like to expand on.

The following comments were made by Mayor Masters while he was still a Council Member:

Copied from Minutes, City Council, February 9, 2009 - CM Masters said that one of his frustrations with the current situation of the school is that they brought a committee together to study an issue and then rejected that committee's recommendation.  He said that he would hate to be part of a Council that would do that same thing.

Copied from Minutes, City Council, March 9, 2009 - CM Masters said that a government entity is charging a fee and unilaterally just raising the fee and asked if this is normal for government to do without a vote of the people.

CM Masters said that maybe it would be possible to go to the Forest Service and tell them that Cascade Locks doesn't do things this way that they wait for an election.

The city councilors take an oath to uphold the city charter. The current city council is trying to change the wording of the initiative that was approved by the voters to allow the city to be able to raise taxes, charges or fees without a vote of the people.

This council chose to ignore the charter by the following actions:

•They approved a 2 year fire suppression fee paid by customers of the city water system

(this will increase most homeowners/renters charge from $12 a year to $108)

•They approved a new resolution to strip an additional 2% from all of our utilities,

(Water, Sewer, TV/Broadband, and Electric) which will eventually be passed on to us.

(All the utilities were paying 5% of their gross sales to the city already, so now they will pay 7%)

In the letter dated 6/25/12, that was included with your electric bill, this council said, “Looking at the City finances through the 2012-2013 budget process, it is clear that in the Emergency Services, Water and Sewer Departments, the current fees will not allow for continuation of these services.”

•Both the Sewer and Water Systems are in need of repairs now. To take money out of these accounts doesn’t make sense. Where is the money for repairs going to come from?

The letter also went on to say:

“The Public Safety Task Force presented to Council a report and recommendations. The primary findings called for an increase in certain fees for fire and ambulance services and the immediate hiring of a full time Fire Chief-in order to continue rebuilding the department. Because the Task Force was open to the community and involved citizen’s input in over 14 meetings, City Council has taken serious action to be responsive to these recommendations.”

The Task Force gave council four recommendations: 1- Hire a paramedic/fire chief. 2 – Form a committee to analyze the financial needs of the Dept. 3 – Have the residents vote on increasing the ambulance fees and the fire suppression fee. 4 – Funds be set aside to purchase a new ambulance. FEES were raised without letting the people vote.

We the People have the right to vote on any increases that affect our economic well being!!!

Now C4CLC went on to point out our very charter restriction for these council actions.

On November 11th, 2008 the citizens of Cascade Locks passed the following resolution:

Section 32 METHODS OF ADOPTION (see the city charter on the City Website)(4)”After January 1, 2008, any such ordinance, or resolution or order approved by a majority of the Council that creates or increases any tax, charge or fee, the ordinance shall not be effective unless ratified by a majority vote of the City’s qualified electors voting in an election where at least 50% of the registered voters cast a ballot, or the election is a general election in an even numbered years.”

Now first off this is a charter initiative. Our charter is our constitution. But there is more to the story than this.

This council seems to think that they can just raise and create taxes and rates but can they using state law?

No they cannot because our charter amendment took their powers to do so under the constitution away. And the constitution is the supreme law.

Article I our bill of rights states; Section 32. Taxes and duties; uniformity of taxation. No tax or duty shall be imposed without the consent of the people or their representatives in the Legislative Assembly; and all taxation shall be uniform on the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax. [Constitution of 1859; Amendment proposed by H.J.R. 16, 1917, and adopted by the people June 4, 1917]

So being we restricted our legislative body to section 32 of our city charter, this council has violated our very State bill of rights as they have no legislative powers to impose any tax or duty on us without a vote of the people.

This also reflects Section II of our constitution concerning voting:

Section 23. Approval by more than majority required for certain measures submitted to people. (1) Any measure that includes any proposed requirement for more than a majority of votes cast by the electorate to approve any change in law or government action shall become effective only if approved by at least the same percentage of voters specified in the proposed voting requirement.

     (2) For the purposes of this section, “measure” includes all initiatives and all measures referred to the voters by the Legislative Assembly.

     (3) The requirements of this section apply to all measures presented to the voters at the November 3, 1998 election and thereafter.

     (4) The purpose of this section is to prevent greater-than-majority voting requirements from being imposed by only a majority of the voters. [Created through initiative petition filed Jan. 15, 1998, and adopted by the people Nov. 3, 1998]

So my question is; if we the people by initiative petition took away the power of our local government to create raise or charge any new or existing tax without a vote of the people. Taken together, with the fact that our legislation cannot approve any measure or imitative without first, taking it to the people for a vote.  Then regardless of what statutory law this city thinks they have protecting them from their actions, doesn’t our constitution require that we voted on them before they were enacted?

So not only has C4CLC pointed out how Lance can give new meaning to the word flip flop, but just how morally wrong these council actions have been since they stripped us of our right to vote them into office with a special election.

Cody and thank you C4CLC.