When citizens realize their city councils are failing to protect natural rights and freedoms, unfortunately, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Not long after moving to
our small, rural community, my husband and I began regularly attending our town
council meetings. To our dismay, we discovered lazy, uniformed leadership
operating with little to no input from citizens. After a yearly audit with
significant findings, we decided I’d run for an open seat. Not one of the four
incumbents survived, and I was elected mayor by my peers the following month.
Although I’d been a citizen activist in education policy,
legislation, and state politics for more than a decade, becoming an elected
official has taught me numerous ways government fails without active citizen
participation.
Elected Officials Don’t
Know A Lot
Most Americans have long suffered under two delusions: one, that
candidates and elected officials must know more than they (or at least enough
to do their jobs); and two, that a citizen’s civic responsibility ends once
they’ve voted. Although I’d attended town board meetings for more than a year
before running for election, once elected, I found myself quite unprepared to
tackle the remarkably diverse issues that fall under the responsibility of municipal
government.
From budgeting to public safety, to infrastructure and parks, to
city planning and ordinance writing, coming to understand how to run even our
tiny town was like learning to drink from a fire hose. Although I
continuously seek input from experienced community members and friends —
especially with budgeting — only now, at the end of my four-year term, am I
gaining perspective from my experiences and feeling somewhat comfortable in my
knowledge of the position.
Uneducated,
aimless city council members are unable to uphold their sworn oaths to
protect citizen interests, placing the onus on citizens to protect their own by
prioritizing regular attendance at council meetings and providing their elected
officials necessary education and direction.
Doing the Right Thing is
Often Unpopular
If residents want their municipal representatives to make
difficult and stressful decisions on their behalf — like voting down an
overreaching mask mandate in front of rowdy people demanding one — they should
take the time to know them on a personal level.
Confrontation truly doesn’t bother me. But while I’m not generally
afraid to speak my mind or debate issues, making unpopular decisions — however
necessary — is stressful even for me. When people in the community reach out
and encourage me, the anxiety decreases markedly and doing my job becomes
easier.
City council
members who don’t like confrontation or can’t handle the stress of making
unpopular votes can easily dismiss citizens who send an occasional email,
sporadically show up on a video call, or attend a meeting or two. It’s much
harder, however, for them to ignore citizens who make it a priority to know and
interact with them regularly. Just as organizations and businesses employ
lobbyists, citizens must become lobbyists on behalf of themselves.
Spending Someone Else’s
Money Is Easy
Government
tyranny comes in many forms today,
but one of the worst has to be the taxation of private property. Popular
with public schools and municipalities, general obligation bonds produce
funds for community projects by taxing the property of local citizens. If a
citizen is unable to pay the taxes allocated, the government confiscates the
land and auctions it off to pay the debt, relieving the citizen of his or her
property.
Sadly, I’m
usually the only elected municipal official in any room decrying property tax
generators and standing for private property rights. Because spending someone
else’s money is easier than budgeting what’s in the bank, most don’t want to
address the elephant in the room: massive municipal overspending.
Most of America’s largest cities are broke, to the
point they cannot possibly pay off their pension and other obligations. Smaller
cities haven’t escaped this massive problem either.
The harsh
truth remains, however, that city council members vote to create general
obligation (GO) bonds and citizens vote to approve them. As
voters could prevent property taxes both at the city council level and in the
voting booth, voters themselves are the ultimate caretakers of their property.
Now think about this: what if property owners aren’t even provided
the services promised by the tax?
At
least 13 American cities have
defunded their police departments this year. In my state, the
municipality of Norman voted to defund their police
department to the tune of $865,000 in June, while attempting to
entice voters in August to approve an $85.6 million GO that partially funded the
police department renovations and cost private property owners up to $697 a
year. The cognitively dissonant bond failed to pass, but
41 percent of citizens voted for the proposition even after a group of residents banded together to (unsuccessfully)
recall the mayor over excessive COVID-19 restrictions.
Norman citizens now, hopefully, realize that active and regular
involvement in their City Council meetings might have been an easier way to
prevent their elected officials from selling out their physical security and
property safety than staging a legal coup.
Citizens Have to Vote to
Curb Spending At the Top
Recently,
our state informed municipalities
that federal deficit-funded CARES ACT funds could reimburse
public safety pay as, theoretically, every call a police officer or firefighter
answers could bring him into contact with a COVID-19 patient. With more needs
than money in the coffers, an agenda item allowing the town to apply for CARES
ACT public safety reimbursement came before the board.
During a
discussion of the item, I summarized the gist of an article I’d
read describing the greatly reduced buying power of dollars dumped into the
economy, arguing against making an application for money that would eventually
make it harder for our citizens to purchase needed goods.
As the clerk prepared to call for votes, however, it hit me: a
“no” vote was little more than Kabuki theater because the printing money to
buying power ratio in the United States has been inverse for decades. Why
should I say “no” when our town is in need and everyone else says “yes”?
I was forced
to vote “no” in good conscience, but until citizens understand they have
the responsibility to pressure officials at every level to make the government
protect their property rights and finances, my one paltry vote might as well be
meaningless.
Government on Autopilot
Eventually Flies into The Ground
When I hear people complain about government, I immediately
inquire about their degree of civic engagement only to get statements like, “I
don’t get involved in politics,” or “I vote.”
Sure, there are countless
things more fun than attending regular city council meetings, but citizens must
become involved in their personal rights, security, and property are to be
protected in the face of municipal officials willing to close private businesses,
force nonsensical COVID restrictions, and defund police departments.
Until citizens choose to
directly operate the controls of their local government, they have no one to
blame but themselves if, with autopilot engaged, the plane flies into the ground.
Jenni White
has a master's in biology and has had careers in advertising, biology,
epidemiology, and teaching. She is the former education director and co-founder
of Reclaiming Oklahoma Parent
Empowerment and has written for publications including The
Pulse, the Heartland Institute, and American Thinker. She is a homeschooling
mother of five currently serving as an elected official in the small town where
she helps her husband run their microfarm. She can be reached at jenni.rope2.0@gmail.com.