Do you like your local government?

I like most of my local government, but not my governor.

I live in a small municipality, outside of Miami. I'm very happy with the mayor and the officials, here. Political views don't really come in to play, too much. Honestly, I don't know what the mayor's stance is on Iraq, healthcare, abortion, or a host of other things. And I don't really care to.

He's almost finished his second--and final--term and he's done a great job. I hope one of the new candidates can fill his shoes. And that's what I'm looking for: effective leadership and continuity in what things are done and how things are done.

If he'd done a poor job, I'd be looking for someone that would change the things that are done and the way things are done.

I have no idea who's in charge of my local government. But as the saying goes, local governments in Australia are for "Rates, Roads and Rubbish". There's no left or right wing way to pave a road, and hence I don't care particularly who gets in, because while I'm sure they'll be corrupt as the next pollie they can't do much damage while they're there.

But I understand that local guvs in the USA are in charge of things like policing, courts and schools. I can see how the political affiliations of your local barons could matter then.

I travel, so my local government changes quite a bit. For the most part, I find them focused on nuts and bolts issues that generate relatively little controversy. In one location, I even have a nephew on the city council, and he'll probably be mayor in a couple weeks. His anti-graft, pro-citizen approach is an easy sell in his area.

In another area, there's about to be a wholesale changing of the guard, since the local government's in deep doo-doo over stupid decisions made over the last few years. The incumbents are pretty much dead ducks, though, and they know it. The people of the city have learned some fiscal responsibility now, I hope.

I think the smaller the political unit, the easier it is for the citizens to get the kind of government they deserve. Those who are paying attention and working for their goals have a more effective voice in a smaller arena.

Of course, the downside is that if the citizens sit around waiting to be sheared, there are always plenty of people willing to run the clippers.

I'm not as active as I was a few years ago. I did not like the previous mayor (he owns more property than anyone in town, and every program he supported benefited his pocket to the exclusion of others), but the new guy got elected and seems to have vanished. Overall, there have been a lot of improvements in the ten years I've lived here. We have a comprehensive development plan that we are more-or-less following (as opposed to midnight deals that puts a Wal-mart and a movie theater in the middle of a residential district) and stuff is getting fixed more quickly.

Being small-town South, people are pretty conservative, and with such a small tax base our roads and schools are depressing (but at least we're not in the Delta!). For 100 years there has been animosity between the university and the city, but that is getting better as more students are living off campus and therefore paying rent or property taxes (or their parents are).

I'd like my local government a hell of a lot better if it would fix the damn roads.

I live in a small, conservative town. The voters tend to go Democrat, have for decades. It is run, in large part, by the leadership in a couple of the local churches.

We are not as involved as we used to be. It was a good place to raise a teenager, so long as we didn't let the local "group mind" become a replacement for thinking for herself.

Best way to describe it now is that the house is here, our life is a half hour down the road.

For all many conservatives whine about the federal government, the local government in this little conservative town is about as incompetent and corrupt as it's possible to be. The man who eventually became the first mayor pushed for incorporation to maximize the value of his holdings, and he carefully gerrymandered his land out of the city territory, thereby avoiding taxes. He played to popular sentiment at wanting to avoid paying taxes to the increased extraterritorial jurisdiction of a much larger nearby city. When he came into office, however, he set the tax rate at the maximum amount allowed under law. He then spent most of those funds on a largely useless building, purportedly for town meetings, though the volunteer fire station is more than sufficient. Road repairs? What are those?

And that's just for starters.

My county government (I'm in the county) is conservative, and I float between conservative to liberal, depending on the topic. Our government, I believe, tries to do the right thing and has a live-and-let-live mentality.

The city government is efficiently run. I have no complaints about that, however, the county government is run by a conservative County Executive who has tried to hold the line on our taxes for well over a decade, which is admirable until you realize he's cut all our services, our parks system (once admired around the country) has gone to shit, and he either lays off workers or forces them on non-paid vacations.

Ours is really so incompetent and/or corrupt. Public meetings are a joke with the decisions clearly already made. It appears to be certain businesses that get what they want, including millions in schmooze money to bring them here before they bail 3 years in.

I'd have no idea how to break it. It's like trying to oust the popular group at school. People with lots of power like things the way they are. They get their roads done all the time, too (literally)

I'm gonna take the Fifth here.
I work for our local government.

I would say that our Council's actions aren't based on party political beliefs. I don't even know what the members' political affiliations are, apart from our Mayor, who is Republican. The Council members' actions are, more or less, based on what they feel is best for the City. I don't envy them at all at the moment because the City budget is fucked and they're left to make decisions about what should be cut.

From what I've seen of other places, I think our little City is pretty fortunate at the moment, the Council members take their jobs seriously and I haven't seen anything that would make me think any of them are feathering their nests.

kuwisdelu said:

I'm wondering now how most people relate to their local government and the prevailing political opinions in their area. Did politics play any role in moving where you live? Did you end up there for other reasons — family, job, etc.? If so, do you feel your local government represents you? Do you feel trapped in a hostile political zone? Do you approve of what your local government does for you? Does it have a noticeable impact in your life as opposed to the federal government?

Click to expand...

My local government and the prevailing political opinion is two different things. I live in a very RED county, however many of the long-lasting political officials in the area are Democrats. They get elected eternally because they do their job and take care of the people and the county. I've heard this from various life-long residents and neighbors. Mixing and matching political party campaign signs on front lawns for local elections is common-place. Signs for federal elections tend to be more by-party based, but locals are for the individual from what I've seen.

Politics had no bearing on moving to where we are now. That decision was based on housing costs, property taxes and the vacinity of friends & family in the area.

My local government - and I live overseas, so I don't have the right to vote here - sort of reflects my overall political values, but there are lots of things they're planning that I don't like - like building another big road behind the first big road and the noisy transit line that are already there in front of where I live.
Otherwise, local government is just too lazy, they don't do lots of things they should be doing, like cleaning up, making everything look nicer, repair existing roads, put in more parks etc.
However, I would never move anywhere or leave any place because of the politicians that ran it. Unless the place changed radically from a democracy to a bloodthirsty dictatorship.

I admit, I like my city councilperson. I voted for the current mayor and I have to say I crinkle my nose every time his name is mentioned. He isn't popular around here and the stories are always bizarro.

Okay, I don't know much about Sonoma County's government, but I know our COLLEGE'S government is corrupt like shit. We're in a budget crisis and the school President (who is different from the Dean in some way that I don't fully understand) tries to cut out week down to six days (and a three day weekend), forces the teachers to go on furlough days, and then gives himself a 30% pay increase like no one would notice.

And the sad thing is, he's...pretty much gotten away with it as so far as I can tell. Students and teachers are protesting, but I haven't seen any changes.

Fuck you, President Arminyana. Or...however you spell your name.

Our city council is ok. We have a few kooks in the council chambers (Caterina being the most notable one) but the Mayor (Mandel) is pretty popular, doing a lot towards building public transit and LRT lines (we've gained 4 new stations in his tenure and plans for two whole new lines drawn up.) We're just waiting for the Provincial government to cough up the money. A lot better than the previous mayors (Reimer, Smith).

The provincial government I'm not too fond of. They've been in power for over 30 years, almost 40 years I think. But eh, the province has been run by dynasties since it's creation: Liberals (1905-1921), United Farmers Federation (1921-1935), Social Credit (1935-1971) and then the Progressive Conservatives (1971- now). So yeah, almost 40 years.

I liked my local government just fine until they bought out the arts center and turned it into a bunch of courtrooms. Bleh.

Today I saw on the news a badly-shaven chubby young man who, to my surprise, is my city mayor. See, he was elected two years ago, but since the government party what care the less is who is the candidate since everyone who supports the president will be vote for him.

I don't see much difference from the previous mayor, who was an alcoholic colonel who was supported by the president until the president told him to fuck off and then nobody liked him within the party, even booing him whenever he went to mass. The only difference is that now the road works sign say "working for change" and that street vendors have different days to go out.

The governor, on the other hand, ever since I was small we had the same governor, Didalco Bolivar, he ruled for 14 years and knew when and how to change the parties when it was necessary, until he felt out of flavor with the president and ran away to avoid emblezzement and corruption charges. The current governor looks like Don Knotts and seems to only do well kissing the ass of the president.

Officially, there are two sides: Government and Opposition, but the truth is that people here are pretty much the same, a tad conservative. I was amazed in my first semester when some kids where making a poll about abortion (pro, against, it depends on the case) and I was shocked to see that against abortion in any case had over 30% of the results, depends if it endangers the life of the mother, in case of incest or rape was the leading one and students in favor of abortion without requirements where less than 20%.


The state governor, the president and the city mayor.

I caught an off duty cop poaching on our farm and he took a shot at me. Are you surprised that the county sheriff has no record of my call to them? Their resonse to me was, "Well if he didn't actually hit you, then what are you complaining for?" This is said to be the setting for the movie, "Deliverance." I scoffed at that a few decades ago.

One of my city councilmen had to register to vote before he could file for election, he is 45 years old. My mayor is facing DUI, indecent exposure, and weapons charges for peeing on a grave in the local cemetery while brandishing a gun. (*snort*, yeah, gun, LOL).

Luckily we have a city manager, all the council and mayor do are issue proclamations in favor of educating children and show up at the Veterans Day ceremonies. Or I might have some concerns.

I'm in a smallish but growing area - we got a Home Depot five years ago, and now we're getting a Wal-Mart (it looks half-built already, like it will open within a year) and a Target (not sure where it's going up, I haven't seen any sign of it). I suppose these will be good for jobs and stuff, and take the pressure off the awful crowding in the Wal-Marts 20 miles to the north and south of here (I usually manage to avoid Wal-Marts).

There's a local/district judge who resigned because of some attorney constantly accusing him of conflict of interest or some such. Here's the story, looks like a lotta things:
http://www.pickensprogress.com/articleinfo.asp?Link=1667

I had that judge for jury duty (that's what I got for voting, got my name on the roll for jury duty) over a year ago. He spent the whole morning telling us about it, some civil case where the attorneys were at the very moment negotiating in hopes they wouldn't have to go to trial, how jury duty was such a high calling and we were going to have a great opportunity to see how the law works, about various stories of previous trials that went wrong because of something wrong some jurist did, wild legal stories in general, etc. We got off at 11 and came back just before noon when he looked very disappointed. He said "I'm terribly sorry. There won't be a trial, they've come to an agreement. Maybe you'll get a chance to serve again sometime soon."

I had to buy a new dress shirt just to wear that morning.