Page Two
Our cover means what you want it to mean; term limits should be junked; decisions about light rail require the long view.
By Louis Black, Fri., Dec. 7, 2001
Daryl Slusher, Jackie Goodman, and Beverly Griffith are out looking for signatures on petitions so they can run for office again. I support this effort, because term limits are inherently anti-democratic. They are an artificial solution to a not-that-real problem. The perception that government isn't working seems to be a pretty widespread feeling, despite whatever a person's other political convictions are. Here's a point on which many seem to agree: Government is broken. I don't think so.
Government actions should represent consensus more than agenda. Nobody agrees with this. Compromise is regarded as a prime disease of modern government. People really want government to operate by agenda. They just want it to be their agenda. They are deeply offended when they feel someone else's agenda is being honored. Especially if it is one with which they fundamentally disagree. Then they say government is corrupt. When government operates close to their agenda, that is good government. But at the root of this is the idea that the government, all government, sucks.
Government does a far better job than it is ever given credit for doing. In the difficult process of operating on the whim of each and every citizen, it does a reasonable job of slumping down the middle. Which doesn't mean it doesn't need to be watched and monitored, observed and criticized. But most of the ways people want to fix it are only going to muck things up. I feel that way about campaign finance reform, but I won't go into that now.
Getting rid of your experienced management class just as they hit maturity and really understand the process is an act of hatred for politicians, not constructive social engineering. As an attempt to fix a process, it is self-destructive and counterintuitive. At the very least, it leaves the bureaucratic staff even more empowered, because they know that any elected official's reign is only temporary.
This is not about supporting or not supporting any of these individual candidates. Those are issues we'll address further along. It is far better for the city politic if these people have the option of running. Let's junk term limits.
In "Postmarks," several folks respond on light rail. What light rail is doing now is beside the point. People aren't going to give up their cars for public transportation until the latter is more convenient than the former. Most of the critics are obsessed with the next few decades when this, by its nature, is about a far greater timetable. 
