The Hell with the Charter

Long Beach is governed by a city charter; a document that spells out who does what. Now that city government has been taken over by a group of socialists, it appears that venerable document is experiencing an end run around its provisions. Why would the elected officials, sworn to uphold the charter, try to evade its very provisions? Good question.

The recent gang of five tried to alter the charter to give themselves more power. The people turned them back. Well if you can't get your way I guess you can just ignore the very document you tried to amend. Once again, why evade the charter? It looks to me it is for one purpose only: make the elected official look good so that they can have a better shot at higher office. It does no good to work on a council where you have no authority beyond that of the group. However, if you can be a cowboy and whip out your trusty six-shooter to slay the imaginary demons within your own district, you should be able to impress the voters. Or maybe there is the shake-down for campaign contributions from those within your district. If the monied interests want something to happen within your district, the movers and shakers know how to assist a cooperative councilperson to be more friendly.

The Mayor is yet another story and it speaks more of a lust for power than anything else. It must be tough to have been the president of a huge corporation where your word was pretty much law and have to settle for glad handing as the Mayor of Long Beach. Oh how annoying it must be for the current mayor when he sees the power wielded by other big city mayors. Too bad he hasn't noticed how truly screwed up those cities are just because they are run by politicians and not professionals. Well that is all for yet another blog entry.

Cheers