more on the County Home Rule process

Why should we care about a County Home Rule charter?

A “County Home Rule Committee” has been giving short talks to a variety of local groups about this very question.

At this juncture, we have three choices:
a) begin circulating a petition to place the County Home Rule question on the November ballot,
b) hold off until the Spring and trust that the new Board of County Commissioners will attend to the Home Rule matter, or
c) forget the whole thing.

Up until this point, the County Home Rule Committee has tried to maintain a fairly “neutral” stance with regard to Home Rule -- being primarily a study group. But it is time to come out of the closet and admit that I and most of our Committee does have an agenda. We think that we should begin the Home Rule charter-writing process.

I think that it is true that the more you study this issue, the more you kind of step back, let go of your particular opinions about what a new County charter could offer and realize that the process itself is a worthy journey in and of itself. At the end of the journey we may or may not end up with a new County charter worth ratifying.

In my personal opinion, the County Home Rule charter-writing process is an opportunity for a spiritual and psychological "cleansing" for us, the citizens, as a whole. This is an opportunity for us, the community, to come together to define who we are and how we want to proceed forward, together. The actual written document is not the most important topic but rather this is a window of opportunity that could move us forward through the process of defining our constitution.

With regard to the three choices above, “Yes” many of us want to move forward with the Home Rule Charter writing process. “No“, we do not want to wait and trust some future, unknown Board of County Commission members to carry us forward at some future date. The time is now.

Currently, the County government follows a set of rules in the State of Colorado Constitution. Our County does not have it own charter or rules. The State tells us how many County Commissioners we must have, that we must elect other officials every four years, and how much we must pay these people.

We have no choice but to follow the State rules unless we create our own rules here at home -- our own Archuleta County Home Rule charter.

Did you know that there are no qualifications and no job description for the County Commissioners, Treasurer, Assessor, County Clerk, Sheriff, Coroner or Surveyor? Any registered voter can get their name on the ballot and run for one of those positions. Under a Home Rule Charter we could set qualifications and standards.

There are several other key topics and many lesser issues that could be addressed by our Home Rule Charter.

A little more detail about County Home Rule can be found at: http://www.pagosadailypost.com/news/7395/OPINION:_The_Rules_for_Home_Rule/

If we vote to start the Home Rule Charter-writing process in November, then we will also be electing an 11 member Charter Writing Commission to create a public forum and to write the proposed new Charter. If the 11 member Charter Writing Commission does an very good job then a public consensus will be built and maintained throughout the entire Charter-writing process.

Then 9 to 10 months later, we the people get a chance to vote on the proposed new Home Rule Charter. “Yes” we accept this as our County Charter, or “No” we do not.

I have personally spoken with all three County Commissioners, some of the current candidates, the Treasurer, the Assessor, the County Clerk and the Sheriff about the Home Rule Charter writing process. Believe it or not, many of these elected officials are afraid to proceed with the process. We’ll discuss “fear” in a moment.

Some of the elected officials running the County at the Hall of Justice have a fatalistic attitude that a new Home Rule charter won’t fix anything. They clearly find the current County system to be a mess and hopeless. I have found that some of the current County elected officials speak the language of “hopelessness”. Basically, the attitude is that nothing can work.

Then there is fear. Certain elected officials do not trust the possibility that “power” might be given away from their office (their fiefdom) and handed over to another office. Much more insidious is the fear that “the people” won’t take the time to educate themselves about Home Rule and, therefore, the people should not be trusted with the vote regarding the Home Rule process in November.

Commissioner Bob Moomaw has been a vocal advocate for County Home Rule. Mr. Moomaw has urged our Home Rule Committee to not place the question of the Home Rule process on the November ballot because there are too many other questions to answer and because a majority of the voters who turn out to vote may not know anything about the Home Rule process. Commissioner Moomaw has asked the Home Rule Committee to wait until next spring before bringing the Home Rule process question to the people.

But, is there any guarantee that the new County Commissioners after November will be any more effective at working together than the current County Commission? Is there any certainty that a majority of the County Commissioners after November will support Home Rule at all?

In the mid-1700’s, bands of rebels attempted to begin to free the American colonies from the oppression of the old regime of England. Many of the people living in the colonies could agree that the English Monarchy did not serve the people well. But, many people were afraid to try to rise up against the British throne. The majority of the people wanted to maintain the “security” of the existing poorly-functioning system and not “risk” creating a new future for themselves.

General George Washington and a rag-tag army practically starved to death in Valley Forge because “the people” were too complacent to contribute money to the revolution and were too afraid to take a stand against the old system.

Today, we the people have allowed the fear of “terrorism” to be used as a justification to take away many of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The Federal Government can now tap your phone and read your mail. Did you know that the President of the U.S. now claims to have the power to imprison indefinitely (without a trial) any person that he thinks is a “terrorist”? Did you know that the President of the U.S. now claims to have the power to torture any person that he thinks is a “terrorist”? These are “powers” that the King of England used to have over the colonists.

Because of fear, we have allowed our Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution to be taken away under the guise of “protecting democracy from terrorists”. In other words, “terrorism” has won the war in this country. Don’t let fear stop you from demanding your constitutional rights. Don’t let fear stop us from engaging in a Home Rule process to explore a new County charter.

The County Home Rule process is an opportunity for us to write our own County “constitution”. It is an opportunity for us to stop and think about who we are and what kind of a County government we want for ourselves going into the future.

The average person finding out about the Home Rule process has been, generally, very receptive and often excited about the possibility of the people creating their own County Home Rule charter.

The people who are opposed to Home Rule or who want to “put it off until later” are almost always people directly involved with the inner workings of the County government.

A new County Home Rule charter does not guarantee that things will get better at the County. That depends on how we write the Charter and how it is implemented.

Going through the process of writing a new County Home Rule charter does guarantee that there will be a lot of discussion about what a good County charter should look like. That means that we, the people, will need to come together to discuss it. That, in and of itself, will be a very good thing.

If you have a group to which you would like to have a presentation explaining County Home Rule - what is it and what is the process -- then please call Teddy Herzog at 731-2587 or Beverly Warburton at 731-0343.

The Home Rule Committee will begin circulating a petition May 9th to place the Home Rule process question on the November ballot. Please call to find out where you can sign the petition and, if you wish, to help facilitate the process.