Additional Articles by NWV Southern Oregon Edition
The most important election in US history – national and local Pt. 2
GRANTS PASS , OREGON. —Locally in Josephine County we have Measure 17.74 which is that insane levy proposal that never dies and should be voted down again unless you want to pay more than a 3% increase in your property tax.
Part Two: The Local Vote
Initiatives
The city and county should be creating jobs and lowering taxes which will raise revenue instead of asking the property owners for money. Let a revived economy fund the jails instead of strapping it on the backs of property owners in which not every person in the county is a property owner. This also makes it an illegal tax because it is not an apportioned tax that everyone pays equally. Property owners are tired of saying NO! Why should they carry the burden for the rest of the city and county? Trying to tax yourself out of debt is like standing in a bucket and trying to lift yourself up.
Measure 17.73 is the city trying to ban state law in the city to keep marijuana growers, retailers, and licensees out of the city. This would only force all that possible revenue to go to neighboring cities when city and the county desperately need the business taxes it will generate. This will also force medical recipients to travel long distances just to obtain their medicine. Let’s make the city employees and managers go to Medford to get their medicines and see how long that will last.
The city and county are continually screaming for more money and here lies an opportunity to help both the county and city revenues and fund their springboard levy. It is estimated it could generate multi millions of dollars in taxes, but the city would rather be smug about it and go after marijuana consumers and kill potential jobs the industry would create. Could it be that one former county commissioners and a current commissioner are invested in hemp? Could it be that their levy is unneeded if they just tax the marijuana sales as they do alcohol and cigarettes? Here’s the answer to the levy staring them in the face but they would rather burden property owners and medical marijuana consumers?
These are a must read before voting.
Primaries:
We have also seen the primary field of candidates for commissioner swamped with 18 people for two positions which evidently isn’t unusual but it was also accompanied by a lot of back handed political chicanery from political operatives who it seems are purposely involved to skew elections away from the constitutionally minded candidates to the not so good ol’ boys.
Two candidates with similar names apparently confused the public and votes were lost from the well known and qualified constitutional candidate Ron Smith to the unqualified unknown candidate Raymond Smith. Ron lost his bid by twenty votes which if Raymond Smith hadn’t run; Ron Smith would have been in the general election against Lilly Morgan another career rubberstamping government worker collecting PERS.
Raymond Smith is a Ferrier blacksmith by trade, an honorable trade but how does that qualify him to run for commissioner if the county desperately needs experienced knowledgeable people? No offense to Raymond but he has never been involved in any form of government so why not start as a city councilor first before moving up to the commissioners position?
Raymond was backed by none other than Dale Mathews who apparently it is alleged by inside sources approached Raymond four or five times initially to encourage him to run for commissioner and it is speculated he paid for the filing fees for Raymond, which could be seen as a spoiler tactic to end Ron’s election bid. However, this remains unconfirmed as other folks had encouraged Raymond Smith to also run but only after Dale got involved. Raymonds’ stump speech had no substance and provided no solutions but he did get votes. This shows that people are not doing their due diligence and researching their choices. If people stay uninvolved then people get the government they deserve.
One non-“good ol’ boy” that got to the general election level for commissioner is Bill Hunker a relative new comer to Josephine County. The general election is over run by all the miscreants and this is where the peoples vote is really needed to upset the monopolistic stranglehold in Josephine County and G.P city governments.
James Rafferty is also a non-good ol’ boy running for county clerk a key position in the quest for honest elections.
Lilly Morgan spend most of her life working for the government then purports that she supports and works for the public sector while professing experience as her qualification. In reality government work is a family affair for her which includes both her parents as career city government employees all collecting PERS. Ms. Morgan seems to not mind having a conflict of interest when voting on something she receives. An elected official cannot vote on their own raises or PERS increases. The people should make that decision.
The state of Oregon has the highest pay for PERS retirement than any other state retirement program which seems to be nothing more than a magnet for the corrupt to move here.
The PERS program itself is billions of dollars in debt but it is deduced it will collapse under the weight of its debt and will not be able to fulfill its obligations to the retirees. When that will happen is anybody’s guess. PERS is nothing more than a failed Ponzi scheme costing the state billions in obligations.
Keith Heck an incumbent Commissioner who is an admitted socialist from LA County looking for reelection in order to keep the globalist agenda moving forward and collect his PERS. If re-elected he will collect his PERS for the rest of his life after his fifth year in office. Can we afford to continue to reward incumbents with PERS if the job they are doing is not in the best interests of the public?
Dan De-Young is running against Commissioner Heck and there is no lesser of two evils here as this is a no win situation for the public but Keith Heck is currently not working for the people’s interests as his record shows. Dan De-Young was bragging (during the April candidates forums) that he was proud of supporting the City of Grants Pass failed sales tax proposal.
Flooding the primaries with contestants may not be unusual but it is a common tactic of the globalist, to promote and back people who really shouldn’t even run as long as the good and qualified are marginalized and pushed out.
This is not to discourage someone from getting involved but people have to realize their own limits. Many people understandably ran out of disgust for what is happening in Josephine County politics but unless you’re backed by one of the good ol’ boys a good person hardly stands a chance in this county.
The people however can start their own grassroots election committees to back their researched and vetted candidate in force, raising money for them and seeing to it elections remain honest with election auditors and exit polls. However, without a receipt there can be no contested election unless paper ballots are recounted with independent observers.
As it has been said, sending a good person to reform a corrupt government is like sending a virgin to reform a whore house. This is an unfortunate reality but we the people can change this if we just get together.
Running for office is not about a cult of personalities or a popularity contest nor is the job easy. It is a real test of your creativity, your drive, and tenacity. We have had in the past several good people in office that were subsequently run out of office on menial trumped up charges resulting in the globalist minions being installed as in the case of the peoples’ city council members in 2009 being recalled.
It is not unlike a corrupt version of musical chairs where the good are left sitting on the floor with no support.
The changes we need will certainly not happen overnight but it all starts with a vote from people taking their responsibilities as citizens seriously and banding together. The longest journey starts with a single step and we have a long uphill journey ahead of us because to take back this republic we have to start with our own county first as explained in part one of this article. The election of Donald Trump could change the whole course of elections and politics in the nation as well as Josephine County.
We the people need new, honest, natural born, people in government and all the career politicians and government lifers working for special interests should be kicked to the curb. Congress people and senators having 20-30 or more years in office creates a stagnation that obstructs progress, justice, and real change because they are all owned by special interests and not the interests of the public which to them is not so special.
The good, and most qualified it seems do not stand a chance because of vote rigging, divisiveness, corrupt county clerks, and control from behind the scenes from the special interest money donors and handlers like Jim Brumbach covered here in part three.
In my humble opinion, if they have been in government more than eight years it’s time for them to move on. America locally and nationally needs to be run by real constitutional Americans with strict term limits in all levels of government and retirement should be a reward for a job well done not just because you filled the seat.
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