January 8, 2010

Opening remarks to the council retreat concerning the shared priorities of the city.

Last Monday, we swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. A question I would like each of us elected officials to ask is how many of us have read the Constitution? On top of that, we swore an oath to uphold the state constitution as well. It is a rare person who has actually read the state constitution. My point is not to belabor whether one person or another has read both constitutions, but to acknowledge that whatever great ideas that we come up with in our retreat or in regular workshops and council sessions—these great ideas must conform to both the US Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Washington. If our ideas do not conform to those documents, then we are duty bound to drop the ideas, no matter how inspiring they may be.

Voters go to the polls year after year hoping that the candidates they elect will actually abide by their voluntary oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. We are those lucky few candidates that are elected, and I suggest that we take a hard and long look at what both constitutions say.

In the case of the US Constitution, it is being ignored by Congress. Let me give you an easy example of that. Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution declares that States are prohibited from accepting anything but gold and silver as legal tender. Imagine if our US dollar were as good as gold tomorrow. That would give way to one of the quickest turnarounds of any recession in our history, I am sure. A stable and inherently sound monetary system is key to giving business investors confidence that their money is not in jeopardy of being devalued through inflation.

Where this becomes important is that there are a multitude of mandates that are brought upon us by the federal government and sometimes passed through the state government to force us to implement some code or law. When these mandates from the federal government are imposed, some of them violate the 10^th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves the right to oppress at the state and local level. However, we feel the heavy hand of the federal government on us, and this is in violation of the US Constitution. If we are serious about the issue of following our oath of office, I believe we must be sensitive to the fact that our constituents will very likely cheer us on if we stand our ground defending their inherent sovereignty. There may indeed be cases in which we clearly see a mandate is unconstitutional. If there is a good enough case to be made, we might want to consider obeying our oaths of office and not implementing an unconstitutional mandate.

The upcoming stormwater mandates are a good example of a mandate that is being imposed upon us without our consent. The Growth Management Act is another example of a law that abridges private property rights in deference for a nebulous and supposedly shared goal of managing the future of society’s direction. It is not government’s job to tell society where to go.

Specifically about our shared values of where we are going as a city, I believe it is long overdue for us as a city to begin to live within our means. If that means that we are going to draw back our progressive agenda to actively seek economic development, then that may just be the best direction we can take.

In simple terms, my ideal description of Washougal is this: A small city that is known for prosecuting injustice, and thereby protects life, liberty and property.

If we enlarge our scope of city government beyond those terms of protecting life, liberty, and property, and prosecuting injustice, then we do so as a trade off of our individual rights. The more that we tell people what they can do, and the more we attempt to shape an ideal growth pattern in our fair town, the less likely we will allow individual freedom to survive.

It is not our duty to promote businesses, or to provide entertainment for our citizens. It is our duty to help protect their basic rights.

So, specifically, with the discussion about what projects we should do in the city, I suggest that we begin to think in terms that we would insist upon in our own households. If we don’t have the money, then we shouldn’t start the project. In the case of E Street, say, I support repainting the street so that it has three lanes, and putting in the Hathaway crosswalk. It doesn’t sound like we have money for more than that, and therefore, I believe we should not do more than that.

If the economy does crash, and our city is already balancing what projects it has on the books to those which we can pay for, then we will be in a far better position than a city that was hoping for more money from other sources to complete its projects.