Just Trust Me

Thing I expected: a certain amount of inflammatory pushback in response to the CA Board’s decision to remove three board members due to ethics violations.

Thing I did not expect: candidates for County Executive jumping into the fray.

Dear CA Board, take note. Don’t make big decisions during election season.

Needless to say, I have some opinions on this situation. They are based on my personal experience and are informed by (let me look) fifteen years observing local happenings for the blog. But I have to admit that there are other people in town who also have opinions based on personal experience and years of being hyper focused on CA. And their opinions are wildly different than mine.

So why should you give any weight to what I’m about to say?

I have found myself replaying the following exchange in my mind a lot this week. It’s from an episode of the BBC panel show QI:

Host: The most dangerous job in terms of sport? Motorsports: motorcycling, Formula One… 

Panelist: No, no no I have to disagree here. The most dangerous sport is fishing. It causes more fatalities than any other sport.

Host: To fish, certainly.

Panelist: To the people that drown! There's more people killed fishing than any other sport and if you don't believe me - - just trust me.

So here I am coming to my readers saying, essentially:

If you don’t believe me -  - just trust me. 

Understanding the imperfect nature of that, I still think I have a few things worth saying,

1. The CA Board created an ethics policy because they needed one. They needed one because they were faced with a member who did something unethical and they had no official way of addressing it.

2. I believe the CA Board has a right to create an ethics policy and they have a right to take actions to uphold that policy. 

3. Based on my knowledge and experience, I believe they did the right thing in removing these three members from the board. 

*****

I came across the following views on Reddit recently in a discussion about this situation. I don’t know who these people are. I thought they made some good points.

Biggest local issue appears to be the CA board, which seems to be run by some old CA residents that are mostly people with grudges against either other board members or CA staff. I would honestly consider volunteering to help but who wants to take nasty e-mails from 100,000 residents for free unless you have lots of free time, or have a bone to pick and are willing to do it to pick your fight. I appreciate some of the new ones trying to make it less work to get more community members involved. Seems like the seats could really use a four year max.

And:

That said, I've watched a few of the CA meetings online, and I'm astonished at how much of it seems to be the Board members arguing with each other, and/or the person leading telling other members that they aren't allowed to speak due to "rules". I don't profess to understand all the history, or the systems by which the meetings are conducted, but it really makes me wonder how they function with so much apparent nastiness and bad feelings. I do hope some of that gets resolved!

I think it’s important to note that both of these responses begin with paragraphs on what the commenters  appreciate about the Columbia Association and the positive aspects of living in Columbia. I’m sharing these words here because they touch on what I have observed over and over through the years. Volunteer representatives of Columbia’s villages have all too often acted as rogue, adversarial combatants.

They would lie, create conspiracy theories, have secret meetings outside regular board times, spread salacious rumors about their perceived opponents. They planned takeovers. Maintained secret email lists. If they believed they were “in the right” they moved forward as though the rules in place did not apply to them. 

And that’s why we’re in this ridiculous predicament.

These three CA Board members believed that, because they alone were fighting the cause of the righteous, the rules of office did not apply to them.

I find it hard to believe that, as has been suggested, that these folks (and those like them) are all about fiscal responsibility. Their actions have caused thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal fees and employment settlements. 

They want lower assessments and free pools and instead they create massive legal bills that drain our community resources. 

Has anyone contemplated the very real possibility that this is a big part of the reason we need to offer such a high compensation package to the CA President? Who on earth is going to take such a position when the toxic environment of the CA Board is well known and their outrageous shenanigans over the years is well documented? 

What happens when Columbia can’t find a single qualified person who is willing to go anywhere near this mess?

A reminder, people who treat CA staff and Village staff with suspicion and contempt are not heroes or innocent victims. I’m sure they don’t like this outcome and perhaps they didn’t think it could happen to them. 

But let’s not romanticize this by painting them as independent voices who cried out in the wilderness. Public service requires making a commitment to ethical standards and practices. If you don’t fulfill those obligations you should face the consequences of your actions.*

I can’t, in fairness, tell you to “just trust me” on this. I do hope that you will consider it. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

*  If you are running for County Executive, may I suggest that you might want to consider this.