A resounding NO!

The results are in from yesterday’s local elections:

Voters resoundingly shot down a proposed $7.6 million library in Town Center and booted out three City Council members who had supported financing the library without public approval.

In record turnout, residents defeated the library bond, 61.5 percent to 38.5 percent, according to unofficial results.

Those who supported the new library need to understand that those 61.5 percent of the voters are not regressive knuckle-dragging thugs who hate the children.  We want Keller to have a good library that meets the needs of the community, but we want to make sure that our priorities are in order.  Anyhow, I don’t want to rehash that whole thing here.  My reasons for being against the proposal that was put before the voters can be seen here.

Maybe I’m still a bit grumpy today, since I’ve been sick, but I couldn’t help but comment on the rest of the article.  I can’t help but think that certain elements of city government are being a bit obtuse.  As an example, consider this:

“The voters have spoken, and there will be no new library,” Mayor Julie Tandy said, adding that she hadn’t analyzed the numbers and didn’t know why it failed.

First, this doesn’t mean that there will not ever be a new library.  Just that there won’t be one in Town Center any time soon.  Further, it’s not hard to understand why it failed.  We’ve only been talking about this for the last five months.  Is it really possible that she hasn’t heard one single argument against the Town Center proposal?

And then we have the same-old-same-old:

Despite their defeats, Lake and Roberts said they didn’t regret voting for the certificates of obligation.

“I still think it’s the right thing to do,” Lake said, adding that there was a lot of misinformation about the library.

Roberts said the council is charged with making such decisions. “A lot of what happens is basically a total misunderstanding by certain voters out there who didn’t understand why we did what we did.”

I still haven’t heard any specifics on this “misinformation.”  Further, we didn’t misunderstand what the council did and why.  I completely understand that the council had the statutory power to issue the bonds.  What I contest is that they had the authority to do so.  The voters spoke loudly in 1999 on this issue in such a way that it should seem obvious that the voters had revoked their delegation of authority to the council.  Don’t insult the voters by claiming that we don’t understand.  I submit that it’s you who doesn’t understand. 

Further, I’d like to see the law (or at least city policy) changed such that the council never issues bonds or certificates of obligation above a certain amount (perhaps $1,000,000) without approval of the voters.  But then I’m “gridlock is good” kind of guy.  I don’t trust government and I think it needs to be constrained at every level.